Magic system suggestions

[mbartelsm]

Hi there, I'm new here , First off, this is for the sake of worldbuilding rather than for a story (yet), so plot is not much of an issue (yet).

I wanted to hear any suggestions regarding the following magic system and the way it would shape society.
It is a kind of extended elemental magic which is heavily ligated to personality and emotions in the sense that certain personalities are much better with certain element. It is divided by the following pairs:

Group 1, Higher elements:
Light: Disguises, Caster tends to disguise his true self from others, these people are often very deceiving.
Shadow: Conceals, Caster tends to hide his true self rather than disguise it and tend to be very shy.

Group 2, Basic elements:
Fire: Self Exp, Fire casters are full of emotions and energy, they tend to be very attached to their love ones.
Water: Self Exp, Water casters are very conformists and adaptable, even when they do not like something

Wind: Self Exp, Wind casters have a great sense of freedom and can rarely stay in one place for long.
Earth: Self Exp, Earth casters are very stubborn and static, they rarely move from where they are born.

Group 3, Advanced elements:
Lightning: Self Exp, casters are very precise and direct, they can never be quiet and are always changing their mind.
Metal: Self Exp, casters are somewhat stubborn, though their ideas can be twisted in order to change their mind.

Wood: Self Exp, Wood casters are always growing and evolving around the rest, they are very sedentary.
Frost: Self Exp, Frost casters are emotionless and static, they let others push them instead of taking action themselves.

These pairs are complete opposites, which does not mean that they are great against each other, instead their powers just don't work against each other (either by cancelling out (water-fire) or sheer ineffectiveness (lightning-metal)), however, when used in conjunction (which is quite difficult), the caster gets access to one last element: Void/Life (which can also be "unlocked" by reaching a state of complete emotional balance trough meditation).

Void can be used to create life, it is very hard to use void to take life away because it conflicts with the target's own life strength and will to survive. For example, void used in conjunction with wood and frost can be used to create life in the form of flora. Combined with fire and water it has the ability to heal wounds. Light and shadow heal diseases, etc. If the caster is skilful enough he may even be able to use life and another single element, when this happens elemental guardians can be summoned by the caster, but this is an ability very few have actually learned.

None of these elements are "good" or "bad", what defines this is the way the powers are used: to create order or to create chaos. While technically it is best to leave things balanced (the way nature/elemental guardians do), society often views order as "good" and chaos as "bad".

Lastly, any element can be combined with sigils and symbols to make them more powerful in one way or the other.
Here is a link to the symbols of the elements: Magic Elements Correspondence by ~mbartelsm on deviantART

EDIT: Also, if anyone can help me come up with a name for magic (I don't want it to be named "magic"), it is supposed to be one of the forces of nature

 

[Addison]

Cool art and you clearly have your magic system pretty concrete. If you're looking for a different name to call your magic look into the culture you're deriving your system from, if any. Or you can go do dictionary.com and use the translator. Put magic or elements into one box and go through the languages until you find something that catches your ear. That or try Scrabble Tiles. Pick tiles at random and make a word. Even if you don't get anything for your magic you can still have fun and find names for something else.

 

[mbartelsm]

Thanks, I will try that

 

[Addison]

You're welcome. And welcome to Mythicscribe.

 

[mbartelsm]

Thank you, any thoughts on how this magic could shape society?

 

[Addison]

Hmm...it's tricky. Whenever magic comes into play in a society, as in the magic isn't a secret society like in Harry Potter, you've got to look at how society and government work. Does your magic society have their own rules and laws? Their own society? Like an apprentice fire caster holds a ball of fire in their hand when they see a master fire caster? Maybe each element helps certain areas of the society. Lightening mages could be on battle fronts or such. Some mages could help in the farms when it's too hot for crops to prosper. Basically look first at if/how each element helps the society and work from there.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I like the ideas of emotions & personalities bing tied to the elemental magic but there are some that seem unclear:

1) Metal: Self Exp, casters are somewhat stubborn, though their ideas can be twisted in order to change their mind.

2) Wood: Self Exp, Wood casters are always growing and evolving around the rest, they are very sedentary.

These two don't feel to be really linked to any solid emotion or personality traits. At least they don't feel as strongly associated as the others which, seems to me the strongest aspect of your system.

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Question: which comes first? The chicken or the egg? Does a certain type of magic change the caster or is the caster drawn to a certain type of magic because of their innate personality? Both aspects are worth consideration.

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Im guessing the quest for void/life magic will play a role? If its in there it better make an appearance because readers will expect it at some point. If that's the case, it might be interesting for a caster to have to master ALL of the magic types to access Void/Life.... A combination of all could be required to cast void/life. It could be interesting to see a caster have to go through emotional and personality changes during their quest for the ultimate knowledge (and also how people around him deal with that). - good conflict maybe.

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These are just questions & ideas. Yours to answer, ignore, use, or discard as you see fit.

 

[mbartelsm]

I like the ideas of emotions & personalities bing tied to the elemental magic but there are some that seem unclear:

1) Metal: Self Exp, casters are somewhat stubborn, though their ideas can be twisted in order to change their mind.

2) Wood: Self Exp, Wood casters are always growing and evolving around the rest, they are very sedentary.

These two don't feel to be really linked to any solid emotion or personality traits. At least they don't feel as strongly associated as the others which, seems to me the strongest aspect of your system.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Question: which comes first? The chicken or the egg? Does a certain type of magic change the caster or is the caster drawn to a certain type of magic because of their innate personality? Both aspects at be worth consideration.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Im guessing the quest for void/life magic will play a role? If its in there it better make an appearance because readers will expect it at some point. If that's the case, it might be interesting for a caster to have to master ALL of the magic types to access Void/Life.... A combination of all could be required to cast void/life. It could be interesting to see a caster have to go through emotional and personality changes during their quest for the ultimate knowledge (and also how people around him deal with that). - good conflict maybe.

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These are just question & ideas. Yours to answer, ignore, use, or discard as you see fit.

About the chicken or the egg, it's definitely the chicken
It is the personality of the caster the one that leads, in order to be proficient at a certain element which is not your natural element, you have to evolve and change.
For the use of life magic you have to think of a disc balanced on a needle, and the elements are each one on the extremes of the disc while life is at the centre and you can only access it if the disc is well balanced, there are two way of doing this, either you use no magic to try to balance the disc and unlock life or you try to use the elements in a way that they balance each other out, because the power of life alone isn't that much (it is great for self discovery and all that spiritual stuff, but nothing more), it is when combined in harmony with the other elements that you can unlock more of it's potential,the more elements,the more difficult it is to keep balance but the more powerful the life magic becomes.
As for metal and wood, those where the most difficult ones, I'll try to work on them a bit more.

@Addison: thanks for all the advise, I will keep it in mind as I work this trough

 

[Meyrrek]

chicken and the egg would be the egg my good man

unless it is essential to your plot I would drop Wood (possibly metal also) as they seem too vague.

 

[mbartelsm]

I would drop them if I could, I've built the system in a way that everything is balanced, if I take out wood and/or metal things could become pretty difficult to re-balance, it would be much easier just to keep building upon what I already have rather than taking out and rebuilding the entire system.

Any suggestions as to what I can add to those elements are highly welcome.

As far as the magic system as a whole goes, I'm even making a students book!
Students Magic Workbook by ~mbartelsm on deviantART

 

[mbartelsm]

Ok, I've worked out the personality problem thanks to the big five personality traits (Big Five personality traits - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), I've assigned each pair of elements a characteristic trait, where both elements lean to opposite extremes (and it fits rather well )

Light: Extrovert, outgoing, sociable, talkative
Shadow: Introvert, reserves, solitary, shy

Wind: Inventive, curious, changing
Earth: Consistent, cautious, stubborn

Fire: Sensitive, emotional, jumpy, nervous
Water: Stable, confident, secure, relaxed

Wood: Kind, compassionate, empathic
Frost: Unkind, cold, apathetic

Lightning: Careless, easy going, disorganized, makes a mess
Metal: Careful, Self disciplines, organized, tidy

Any thoughts on it?

 

[JCFarnham]

I probably wouldn't have mentioned plot if you hadn't mentioned it in your first post, but I find myself compelled to give you my opinion on that (more later).

Firstly, I love that you've attached iconography to your system - this will come in handy later on, when you come to think of way of making your finished book stand out.. oh look you already have a set of symbols you can use throughout and/or on the cover. Its good stuff too and really calls to mind I Ching and Hexagrams and Asian systems like that. Lovely.

Mind you I was worried about yet another elemental magic system. What sets you apart how ever is that you're thinking far deeper than simply the rule of cool. I doubt your mages/wizards/whatever are JUST about fireballs, and the visuality of that kind of system. That'll stand you in good stead.

Now as promised I'd like to come to plot. I personally believe that any element of fiction created in worldbuilding needs to not only stand on its own and in context, but must facilitate other things within that setting (all if not most, in the context of a single story). So from there I don't think its worth ignoring plot while you build this. What use is a fantastically realised magic system with no where for it to fit? If it's being there in a fantasy society doesn't raise questions, answer others, and above all else spawn plot ideas, then why is it there in the first place?

That's all just a matter of philosophy though, I'm sure as you build this you are brimming with ideas. And we must all start some where when world building

The emotional trend here in your system is your greatest strength, play on that. You have the perfect excuse for conflict built right in there.

 

[JCFarnham]

Ok, I've worked out the personality problem thanks to the big five personality traits (Big Five personality traits - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), I've assigned each pair of elements a characteristic trait, where both elements lean to opposite extremes (and it fits rather well )

-snip for length-

Any thoughts on it?

Being able to lock your balance idea along side psychological personality tests like that is really going to save time when it comes to creating mage characters. Though I suggest you be careful, there should probably be some degree of wiggle room in these personality types, or else you could end up with a whole load of incredibly similar characters, or conversely character breaking the mold you've set for them. Might I also suggest you look into the Myers-Briggs version of the personality indicators as well, if you haven't already that is. It'll give you another view so to speak.

 

[mbartelsm]

I made it so that one element would have only one general trait to define it (Openness positive or reversed, Conscientiousness positive or reversed, Extraversion + -, Agreeableness + -, Neuroticism + -), which means that the most important or extreme trait of a character defines his element, all the others are left open to play around a bit (while being less important than the main trait).

When it come to the plot there is a problem and it is that I am no writer, I am an artist. I would still like to make something out of this though, maybe using my own skills to make a graphic novel or something along those lines. The general idea for the plot was a main character obsessed on the death of his loved one, he's also obsessed with using Life powers along with shadow and light to see his partner once more and say goodbye. The other idea was he being tormented with causing the death of his loved one and seeking redemption the same way as before just to discover that he is not guilty at all, it was someone else's fault and as he tries to seek revenge he finds that the person guilty was the one always on his side and that it is not worth to take revenge.

 

[Addison]

As JCFranham said leave yourself wiggle room. In my earliest trials of making magic and characters I did so much research that it clogged my imagination. I stayed away from the computer for a week and just let other thoughts and ideas come into play. When I went back to that project I had a clear head. What I learned was still there in my head to help but it had soaked into the subconscious so I could write and create freely.

 

[mbartelsm]

I guess you are right, I will try working on something else for some time and see what happens

 

[Rullenzar]

First off, I'm not sure why nobody has mentioned this yet but your saying your system is based off of emotion. I don't see a single magic art associated with an "emotion". You do however provide character traits from personalities and how certain groups may respond or act in certain situations.

This being said I would first sit down and brainstorm emotions and then start applying them to your magic arts (example: Fire = anger/rage , lightning = spontaneous/anxious.) We don't need to know how someone would react or act as we immediately have a picture from the one word given and anything else is just story waiting to be written by you.

Another thing I will point out is try and be very clear with your various distinctions between your pairs. Some are fairly similar (light/shadow). In my opinion light should be very different, and the two explanations you gave for both should and would work better for just shadow side.

 

[Rullenzar]

Ok, I've worked out the personality problem thanks to the big five personality traits (Big Five personality traits - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), I've assigned each pair of elements a characteristic trait, where both elements lean to opposite extremes (and it fits rather well )

Light: Extrovert, outgoing, sociable, talkative
Shadow: Introvert, reserves, solitary, shy

Wind: Inventive, curious, changing
Earth: Consistent, cautious, stubborn

Fire: Sensitive, emotional, jumpy, nervous
Water: Stable, confident, secure, relaxed

Wood: Kind, compassionate, empathic
Frost: Unkind, cold, apathetic

Lightning: Careless, easy going, disorganized, makes a mess
Metal: Careful, Self disciplines, organized, tidy

Any thoughts on it?

I saw this after my last post, glad someone pointed this out and much better.

 

[mbartelsm]

I saw this after my last post, glad someone pointed this out and much better.

It's ok, you pointing that out made me remember that while I have the elements I have not worked the ways magic is employed, while the "standard" magic should be something on the style of The Last Airbender which can be used at will and in conjunction with fighting, but there should also be the option to perform complex rituals to cast powerful magic. It's a bit confusing right now, like I said, I have to work on it.