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Magic in my main story

Mothyards

Scribe
Finally wrote up a thing about magic in my primary story, MagicBound! Wanted to get someone else’s opinion on it! This is from a project I’ve been working on for 11 years since I was 15 lol any questions and of course constructive criticism welcome!


Laws of Magic


1- Magic can both create and destroy energy. It is inevitable that a universe will create more magic than it destroys.


2- Magic is constant, it’s usage is not. (The understanding that magic is a singular force and magical usage is based on how an object or organism interacts with magic)


3- The rules of magic override the physical laws of reality where relative. (The understanding that magic will override rules such as Newton’s third law if the magic in use is opposed or overrides the law. That is to say every action has an equal and opposite reaction however if used in an applicable manner magic can be used to temporarily break this law. This applies anywhere that magic overrides the laws of reality)




Magic seeps into the universe in a form similar to radiation and can be viewed in a similar manner to radio waves or microwaves.

Magic itself is a singular source of energy that is believed to be ever present where it exists. To give a physical description magic could be viewed as a cloud across the universe, where it is, magic is. The farther away from the cloud one gets the less magic they have access to, however it is believed that if there are places in the universe that don’t have magic, they are pockets and are exceptions to magics rule. There are places however that magic is thin in and don’t receive the same amount of energy that other places in the universe receive.

When objects or organisms interact with magic the process can best be described by a metaphor of a radio picking up a signal.

Magic is not diverse in its energy but rather in its use. When someone who controls fire and someone who controls water use magic, they use the exact same energy, but it is the way they tap into this energy that is different. In most organisms the usage of magic is controlled through a process that is roughly all encompassed in the term “magical genes”. While there are magical genes, this doesn’t fully describe the process of magical use. However the ability to control a certain type of magic is genetic. Someone who is a pyromagi, someone who can control fire, has a specific magical gene that taps into magical radiation in a way that allows the user to create and control bursts of fire.

The actual use of magic however is usually delegated by one’s ley veins. A ley vein is a semi ethereal system of an organism's body. This adaptation has evolved multiple times across the kingdoms of both fauna and flora and is vital to the usage of magic.

A ley vein runs through a body like a circulatory system and is considered the reservoir of magic in an organism's body. Most organisms have evolved to passively absorb magical radiation around them and don’t need to actively refill these veins. However not all organisms have this ability and must ingest magic in a different way, though we can come back to that.

An organism casting magic will use the ley veins in their body to both power and direct the magic, it is both a flow of power like your veins flow blood, and a secondary way of passing impulses between the body and the brain, specifically through the cerebral ley pool. The cerebral ley pool works with the brain to cause impulses from the brain to be translated into magical impulses that allow for control of magic.

While it is not impossible to relearn magic afterwards, to lose one’s limbs is to lose the ley veins attached to the body part in question. Often when someone loses an arm or a leg their control over magic goes with it. While the rest of the ley veins still exists with the body, a natural protective measure activates upon ley disruption or degradation that prevents more impulses to travel between the brain and the cerebral ley pool in an attempts to prevent a biological time bomb referred to as MEE, Magically Eruptive Euthanasia, which causes magic to become unstable. Unstable magic is highly explosive, and even a small unit of magic is extremely powerful and energy filled. A magical organism the size of a human that goes through MEE is like dropping a bomb. A particularly skilled magician is capable of having so much control over their magic that they can physically separate themselves from their lay veins causing a rush of power and… boom!

Magic is generally classified by scholars into trees or branches in much the same way as organism classifications. Certain magic types are considered “family” due to the relative closeness of the mutation of the magical gene that allows for usage. In fact many of these trees are so close that it often only takes a few years for someone to learn related magical types. This of course brings us into the idea of the Imulah and the Hyulah.

The term Imulah describes someone who’s magic is narrow but deep, while a Hyulah’s magic wide but shallow. Imulah often have trouble mastering related magics, but are overwhelmingly proficient in the magic they are born with. Hyulah have a much easier time learning related magic types and often become powerful in their own right due to this, however, this limits their proficiency in each individual magic type.

Listed below is a brief overview of magic types, separating the most common magic types by their trees. Often these trees are more closely related than they appear so while two types of magic might not be on the same tree they might be noted as being related to a type of magic that is described as unrelated.

The heat core describes the magic branches that include kinetic manipulation, fire, arc, and plasma magics

The pure core describes magic branches that include clear, light, pure, telekinetic, and star magics. Star magic is also closely related to fire magic.

The hatred core describes magic branches that includes shadow, blood, chaos, and darkness magics. Darkness magic is also closely related to light magic.

The gaia core describes magic branches that include terra, life, plant, toxic, radioactive, and metallurgic magics. Terra magic is also closely related to kinetic manipulation magic. Life and plant magics are considered separately closely related while both exist in the gaia core. Radiation magic is also closely related to plasma magic.

The atmosphere core describes magic branches that include air, pressure, and gravity magics.

The hydro core describes magic branches that include water, ice, and kinetic decresion magics. Water magic is also closely related to blood magic. Kinetic decresion magic is also closely related to terra and kinetic manipulation magics.

While these are not the only types of magic, these are the most common amongst the races of Pandocium.
 

Mothyards

Scribe
for anyone stumbling across this old old post, the idea of the cores is kinda stupid and i wrote it really stupidly lol magic is genetically related but saying it the way i did was an awful way of saying it lmao
 

LostName

Dreamer
I really like it. Ironically it's pretty similar to my own meta magic system. E.g. almost every organism has a magic circuit and while I haven't really used it more than once yet, certain magic uses certain parts of the magic circuit located in e.g. your legs or your lungs or whatever and if you use magic based in the legs but lose your legs you can no longer use that magic.

I was inspired by Shirou recreating his entire magic circuit from scratch whenever he used magic in Fate / Stay Night though.
And all magic is also omnipresent and has many properties similar to electromagnetic radiation, e.g. elements are a phase modulation of magic so elements like fire, lightning, etc. are really just labels and actually there is no limit to how many "elements" can be used.
 

Mothyards

Scribe
Sounds interesting, but far too physics-y for me. I generally prefer magic to remain magical, if not outright divine.
lol Yeah, I can say that the idea behind this was always based in science and can understand why its not to your taste. To be specific evolutionary biology.

Of course as this post is like, two years old my understanding of the science has grown some, thought part of the reason it has to do with biology is a part of the larger scope of the, ... idk what to call it ... "multiverse"? Which would be a technically correct word but it is going to immediately bring in ideas that have started to be pushed for a lot in more recent years some time after I started putting together the idea of how these worlds work so I'm hesitant to use that word lol
 

Kalipso

Dreamer
Wow, I'm super late, but this is a really unique magic system! I like the idea that losing a limb may affect your ability to cast magic. I agree that it seems very science-based, and although that's not my personal taste, I can certainly see how this would be cool to read. I thought even this post was interesting, so I'm sure whatever your project may be is great.
 

Mothyards

Scribe
Wow, I'm super late, but this is a really unique magic system! I like the idea that losing a limb may affect your ability to cast magic. I agree that it seems very science-based, and although that's not my personal taste, I can certainly see how this would be cool to read. I thought even this post was interesting, so I'm sure whatever your project may be is great.
Thank you! It means a lot lol, especially with this old idea.
This one is definitely my baby so I can be somewhat hesitant to change things, however I was always worried the magic would be seen as too plain, or as I can imagine since it was a very large inspiration at a lot of steps, just being too much like bending in TLAB and LOK on its surface.
 
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