How's this for a magic system?

[TopHat]

TopHat here again!
Its going to be a long thread but I really, really need some outside-advice! Any opinions and ideas are more than welcome!

I'm working on a project and trying to create a magicsystem and a setting that works together. Here's a quickversion:

There's a fundamental power and magical energy, lets call it "Mana" for now, existing alongside the laws of physics. This is the stuff that the universe is made of, it was used to create reality and creation by the gods in the beginning. Magic is the art of manipulating Mana to affect the laws of physics and produce different effects. The gods have mastered magic and knows all of its secrets and ways of using it.

Wizards gain their ability to use magic during a "near-death-experience". If they die and somehow survives they may wake up with the ability to use magic. What has happened is that their soul has transformed during the near-death-experience and is now capable of producing Mana. With training the wizards learn to manipulate Mana by using their will.

By manipulating Mana in different ways you can perform different things, all within the laws of physics. For example, if you want to create fire the wizard, using his will, compresses Mana into a smaller space and that generates heat. If he continues he will eventually produce an open fire. Imagine the things you can do based on that simple principle, you can use fire in offensive purposes as well in everyday situations like light your campfire, boil water etc.

The strength of a wizards soul can be improved (although I've yet to figure out how. I welcome all kinds of ideas!) The main rule is if they try to perform magic beyond their souls strength they risk breaking and destroying it. With results in them turning into a ghost/specter when they finally die and are denied entry into the Afterlife.

One way to improve your power is by using a magic wand, ring or amulet . These serve as spare batteries and by wielding it the wizard have more Mana to use.

In this world there are two nations, with different views on magic. The nation in the west lives in a kind of medieval setting and society that accepts wizards as something natural. The nation in the east lives in a more renaissance setting that are technologically more advanced (im thinkking steam and mechanics). The religion is very strong in this society and it clearly states that magic is something only the gods should wield. Using magic is blasphemy and anyone who does is to be seen as a heretic, a demon in mortal form who deserves punishment and execution. This society has been hunting wizards for ages and their witchhunters are relying on religious artifacts and mechanics, often combined.
One of their most used inventions is a kind of "Mana-sensitive-meter". I like to think of it as a kind of geiger counter that picks up on Mana and wizards.

My main problems are:
1. Spells and ways of using magic. If there is a will-based magic system there's not going to be many spells, only a few basic spells like Fire,Water, Earth, Wind etc. and lots and lots of variations of them. There's no need to have "Fireball-spell", "Firestorm-spell" and "Firewall-spell", they all go under "Fire-spell".
I really want more than just a few elemental-spells. I want my wizards to be able to transform things, create illusions, shape-shifting, talking to animals etc.

2. Magic vs technology. I really like the concept of having a kind of scientific view on magic that explains parts of it but not all. A natural force that affects the laws of physics in different fashions. By giving mana a few core attributes, like generating heat under pressure, it feels more graspable. Sadly it kind of kills the mystical feeling that magic is all about!

3. When two wizards duel I want a fast-paced combat with lots of different spells. Its kind of boring to have two guys just throwing fireballs at each other. I want them to counter each others spells, adapting to them. I'm thinking something like the duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore in the movie. Voldemort transforms the lightning into a fire-snake, Dumbledore then kills the snake and uses the fire to a kind of "fire-storm" spell which he sends back towards Voldemort.
At the same time as I want fast-paced combat I love the concept that some magic has to be prepared in advance somehow.

So, I want magic and spells to leave room for creativity, to be able to use fire for more than just burn your enemy, but to be used as a tool to solve problems. I want to be able to use magic in many creative ways, but at the same time I don't want one spell that performs one specific thing. If you can spray fire, you should be able to turn it down and light a candle!

I'd love to have a relation between magic and science! Maybe the East nation has a more modern/scientific approach/view to magic and this mystical, fundamental energy that I've been calling "Mana" throughout this thread.

I hope most of you have made it this far into the thread. I welcome all kinds of tips, opinions, advices on how to solve these problems and other things I've might have missed.

Yours,
TopHat.

 

[wordwalker]

Sounds like a good basis for a system. A few thoughts:

To increase your magic, batteries sound good, if it's about having more energy. But other ways might be to repeat your near-death experience to some degree, or to get more practice using strong spells to avoid going that extra step and breaking. Or, another way might be to draw energy from ghosts (which opens up the nasty scenario of a Dark Wizard capturing towns, pushing people to near-death to find the ones that come back as mages, push them to ghosthood, and harvest their power...).

Spells: it seems like your system doesn't have spells, but each force does have different applications, and mages might have very different degrees of practice with different ones. To take the obvious, a Fireball might be the obvious attack, but a wizard with less power and faster reflexes might have trained to focus a bit of heat onto an enemy's clothes so the enemy has to put out his robes before he can get his own spell off. A less aggressive mage might throw up walls of fire--or be good at disrupting incoming spells. And that's with one element; practice with fire might help only so much with lightning, or earth, let alone with shapeshifting or mind-magic.

This "skill difference" would be most important in combat, where speed is vital. It would also be key for anything subtle: illusions and healing might be things most mages could do, but only the specialists could do precisely enough to get real use out of. Then again, if the real risk is overtaxing your soul, skill could make any spell simply stronger because the mage would be more practiced at pushing his soul to the limit and stopping there.

Creative duels: I think the key here is making it somewhat easy (but not too easy) for wizards to deflect or take control of enemy spells, if they can see them coming-- a bit like how most weapon strikes are parried. Without that nobody needs creativity or variety, just raw power to smash through their wards. But with good defenses, that forces both sides to look for inventive, maybe indirect attacks that can sneak in, often combined with whatever tricks they've practiced to cast quickly. Start a delayed-action attack building, keep the enemy busy with your fastest attacks of different kinds, all the while blocking his and hoping he doesn't use a force you're out of practice with...

 

[TopHat]

Very interesting thoughts, never thought about repeating the near-death-experience!

The spell-problem is my biggest problem! I'm trying to avoid creating elemental-magic system, that all spells rests on four elements and mastering the fire-element, for example, enables you to do practically anything with fire. Instead I'm trying to create spells with many applications. For example, another spell like Hypnosis. The spell itself is really simple:

The wizard creates a connection between his mind and someone else.

The effect is really simple but the applications are many. Imagine what a wizard could do with a way into a persons mind! He can access to the persons thoughts and memories. If he's skillful enough he can influence the person, plant ideas and thoughts into his head without anyone realising it. If he has mastered the spell, he can convince the person of realities that doesn't exist, making the person hallucinate.

This has got me thinking more than once, if one spell can apply to a lot of different things that means there's not going to exist a lot of spells overall. I guess it's something I can't avoid, can I?

Another thing you mentioned that got me thinking, maybe mastering a spell requires skill and practice instead of a certain amount of mana. Just like mastering music or a craft requires both skill and practice.

Great idea about the dueling btw!

 

[Addison]

TopHat here again!
The strength of a wizards soul can be improved (although I've yet to figure out how. I welcome all kinds of ideas!) .........

One way to improve your power is by using a magic wand, ring or amulet . These serve as spare batteries and by wielding it the wizard have more Mana to use.


My main problems are:
1. Spells and ways of using magic. If there is a will-based magic system there's not going to be many spells, only a few basic spells like Fire,Water, Earth, Wind etc. and lots and lots of variations of them. There's no need to have "Fireball-spell", "Firestorm-spell" and "Firewall-spell", they all go under "Fire-spell".
I really want more than just a few elemental-spells. I want my wizards to be able to transform things, create illusions, shape-shifting, talking to animals etc.

2. Magic vs technology. I really like the concept of having a kind of scientific view on magic that explains parts of it but not all. A natural force that affects the laws of physics in different fashions. By giving mana a few core attributes, like generating heat under pressure, it feels more graspable. Sadly it kind of kills the mystical feeling that magic is all about!

3. When two wizards duel I want a fast-paced combat with lots of different spells. Its kind of boring to have two guys just throwing fireballs at each other. I want them to counter each others spells, adapting to them. I'm thinking something like the duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore in the movie. Voldemort transforms the lightning into a fire-snake, Dumbledore then kills the snake and uses the fire to a kind of "fire-storm" spell which he sends back towards Voldemort.
At the same time as I want fast-paced combat I love the concept that some magic has to be prepared in advance somehow.

So, I want magic and spells to leave room for creativity, to be able to use fire for more than just burn your enemy, but to be used as a tool to solve problems. I want to be able to use magic in many creative ways, but at the same time I don't want one spell that performs one specific thing. If you can spray fire, you should be able to turn it down and light a candle!
.

Wow this sounds cool!

Okay uh, you said you're not sure how the soul can become stronger. Well their soul connected to the mana through a life-or-death situation. They faced something terrible (or good depending on the character) but came back. A determination to keep living and a courage to stare down their fear. So maybe their soul grows stronger as they face down more fears, show resistance to run, resistance to evil (as evil is easy but good is better and stronger because they make they hard choices).

1. I think I already posted an answer to this in your other thread. At least the element part. As for shape-shifting and illusions and stuff...well maybe if you look at it half-scientifically and half-magically. You say that mana is everywhere, it made everything so, technically, everything has mana. Trees, rocks, ducks, the neighbor. So with that said the wizard only has to learn to tap into that mana, not the raw stuff floating around them but mana that's already inside something. Scientifically they might just have to learn the shape and such of what they're transforming something into.

2. Explaining magic does kind of take the magic right out of it. The reader doesn't need to know how it works so long as they know that it works. As long as they know how scarce magic is in the world, the difficulty and the cost (in this case it's strength/will power) and you keep magic consistent then they're good. But for the science vs. magic concept maybe you can have the science guys, who by science know how the wizards achieve their magic goals, but because it's mana they can't really squash it. This not only gives the magic more wonder it also gives the science guys a head ache and motive for whatever they're planning.

3. This is tricky. Sort of. By the sound of your world this could go a hundred ways. Remember Harry Potter four when Durmstrang comes to Hogwarts and they do their grand entry with the staves and fire? That was like part magic part kick-butt moves. So maybe part of the combat is physical, weapon on weapon, fist on head thing. The better the dueler they are without magic then the stronger their magic could be. (If they're disciplined enough to resist using magic for all their troubles by learning other skills perhaps...) Casting spells in preparation is a good idea. They can drink a potion or cast a spell to give them strength or extra defense, what ever. Adapting elements could be easy, depending on the wizard's skill. As I said elements are connected. And remember, you said Mana was a mystical element created by the gods. It's not a particle, not a microbe, it's like ether, it can do anything if you know how to use it. So don't feel like you have to restrict yourself to the elements.

Over all this is an amazing system you have going.

 

[TopHat]

Thanks!

I like your ideas and that they are similar to what I have in mind. Yes, in this world matter is in its purest, most refined form mana. The Gods realize this and that's why they can shape reality as they wish. The wizards have not discovered this knowledge quite yet, or they are aware of it but don't have the skill to harness this kind of mana.

Illusion-magic works something like manipulating the mana to form a kind of screen that the wizard projects his imagination to, he can project whatever image he wants. A novice can only create a 2-dimensional screen. With practice he can bend the screen to form 3-dimensionel images. The screens are visionary, they can only fool the eye. Solid objects passes right through them. Smells and sounds can not be created by using Illusion-magic. Again, the Illusion-spell has a simple principle but with many applications and ways of using it! I love this kind of magic. A spell that produces a simple effect that can be applied to many situations and problemsolving-scenarios!

The reason why I seek a relation between magic and sience is to give more than one perspective to magic. The wizards look at magic as manipulating the forces of nature and the universe. The scientists view Mana as a kind of energy that has the ability to affect matter on a molecular level.
I have this scene in my head when the wizards come across an artifact infused with mana. They look at it and say something like "Do you feel that? The forces of nature are all circulating to this artifact." When the scientists come across the artifact they look at their instruments and say "Look at this, the meters are all of the charts! There's a lot of activity in this area, and it seems to radiate from this artifact!"
The Science perspective is supposed to give a theory, not an explanation, to how magic works. How does that sound?

Yes, magic based only on the elements feels kind of restricted. That is why i'm going with this "mana", an universal energy that can be transformed into many shapes and fashions for example, into the elements.

Thank you again, despite not being finished I'm proud of this system. Or at least the idea behind it

I have this idea on how to perform transformation, but it feels kind of... too powerful perhaps? Let me explain!
The gods know that matter=mana. They can simply manipulate the mana that the objects consists of and transform it into something else.
If a wizard wants to transform one thing into another he must have the knowledge on how the two things are built on a molecular level. Then he infuses the object with mana and manipulates that mana and shapes it so it the molecules transform into something else. A simple principle!
It can also be applied to biology. To transform one creature into another he must know the anatomy of both! Then he infuses the creature with mana and changes the moleculars! However, I imagine it must be quite painful for the creature. In that case maybe the wizard have to tamper with the nervoussystem and remove the ability to feel pain, or sedate it, and then begin the molecular-transformation.
A simple, logical principle with many applications! However difficult to perform.

How does that sound?

Yours,
TopHat.

 

[Addison]

That sounds very real and wonderful. I tip my hat to you TopHat.

 

[Lycan999]

Yes, in this world matter is in its purest, most refined form mana. The Gods realize this and that's why they can shape reality as they wish. The wizards have not discovered this knowledge quite yet, or they are aware of it but don't have the skill to harness this kind of mana.

You may realize this, but you are making your "mana" have almost the exact scientific definition as energy. Everyone knows Einstein's formula E=mc^2, which states that matter is really only highly concentrated energy. It might not matter at all, but its something to look into. There are many energy/matter theories that could give you ideas.

 

[Saigonnus]

I could imagine a culture of wizards who "kill" their kids just so they wake up able to use magic..

 

[Creed]

I could imagine a culture of wizards who "kill" their kids just so they wake up able to use magic..

I could see that. Like a ritual when they reach a certain age, and are beaten to near-death or buried alive or something. Of course, not everyone could make it.
You say that "With training the wizards learn to manipulate Mana by using their will" so couldn't a Mage make himself stronger simply by honing his will and concentration? Like in Buddhism, the meditation is often used as practise on focusing. Is it possible the same logic applies here?
Also for your worry in regards to spells, I wouldn't think if them as actual defined spells like Fireball and Firewall- it's just fire, and the mage can do whatever he wants with it. That may be making a ball or a fire but it could easily be focused onto a single points to make a candle ignite. Ironically, I imagine it would be more difficult to light a candle than burn down a house, just by virtue of the concentration needed.

 

[Lycan999]

There may be a less violent way for the near-death experience. The wizards could have a coming of age ceremony where they leave the wizard-to-be somewhere in the middle of the wilderness without any food or water for a few days. If they are still alive when it is over they could be so close to death that it triggers there abilities. Or instead of being left someplace the wizards could practice traditions such as meditation and be forced to meditate until they are close to death, allowing their powers to develop.

I also agree with Creed, meditation could be a way of strengthening powers instead of just awakening them. You might also consider that being close to death in any way could strengthen a wizards powers, so they might practice traditions such as fasting. There could also be obscure branches of wizards that practice self-mutilation in order to strengthen themselves.

Also I have as suggestion about your spell problem. You might consider adding another way to control the magic, such as spoken word. Instead of just concentrating and manipulating mana they have to also have to manipulate it verbally. It could be bound to some ancient language where only a few words are known so that instead of unlimited possibilities there are only a few possible spell.

 

[Awakened Victim]

One thing I noticed when reading your article and its many responses was the constant thinking that elemental systems are limited. I would say that is not at all the case. Take Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. He has a brilliantly executed elemental system and can do anything the wielder can imagine. They just need to know how to do it.

The way to make it effective, though, is through the combinations of the elements. You seem really excited about illusion magic. Well in an elemental system, it would be light or a combination of light and water. To transform matter, you might need a little bit of everything in varying amounts.

I would say it is not the system that is limited, only how you can use it, or make it work. As one of my friends says whenever we talk about his stories, if it makes sense then it is viable.

Just trying to get those creative juices flowing.

Best of luck and hope this helps!

 

[TopHat]

Interesting, I've never thought about Illusion-magic in that fashion. Im sadly not familiar with The wheel of time series, though
im a fan of Brandon Sanderson. I really like his lectures on Youtube.
Yes, you're right, the system itself is not the real problem. Its all a matter of the amount of "mana", the strength of your will and the knowledge of how "mana" effects the laws of physics. In one way it is a kind of "elemental" system, the manipulation of "mana" creates or affects the natural forces.
The real problem is I would end up with very few spells, because all magic effects are variations of each other or different in strength. I could categorize all fire effects under "fire-spell", all illusion magic under "Illusion-spell" etc. All my magic would fit into 5 to 6 spells and that makes it feel too simple or restricted.

Thanks, it does help a lot!

 

[Snowpoint]

Find interesting was to interact with the power, and unusual ways to use it. Like, walking around with a light bulb in your hand to detect magic, if it glows, you are in danger.

the magic system doesn't need to re-invent the wheel, just look at it from your original point of view. (the availability of light-bulbs in your fantasy may vary.)