magic system

[tiefighter35]

so I'm new here and recently I created a magic system for fun, and I would really apreciate if some people would be willing to give me feedback and some ideas to keep moving foward.
here is the system:
Everyone is born with an innate ability.

To access one’s ability you must sacrifice something (A body Part, part of your will/soul…) to the unknown Entity.

The greater the sacrifice the stronger one’s power.

Each power can be classified as: Enhancements, Psychic, Elemental and Cursed.

The Entity is an unknown Creature who appeared to humans 10 000 years ago and granted the only Free power. The Readers are a Family that is born with their power already unlocked, they can determine anyone’s ability.

Enhancement abilities enhance one’s capabilities, be it their strength, intelligence or speed…

Psychic abilities touch on the mind granting powers such as telekinesis, Mind reading… The Readers are part of this category.

Elemental abilities manipulate parts of the world like darkness, light, fire, water…

Cursed abilities are the most powerful but terrify the non-Cursed and are frowned upon. These include powers such as power over Life and Death, void manipulation, energy manipulation, summoning...

One’s power is determined by their parent’s ability but modified to fit one’s potential and character. However, it is not a mix, it is the ability of the parent with the strongest ability.

One can only Sacrifice to the Entity on their 17th birthday exactly 1 year after their reading, a ritual where a Reader determines their power. This is when they determine what they want to sacrifice if they want to activate their power.

A person who has sacrificed part of themselves can lose part of themselves in the ritual so only the strong willed and the brave dare to go through with it.

Extremely rare people are born who can learn other abilities from the same school as their original ability. They are called Avatars. However no-one can learn multiple schools, many have died trying or lost themselves in trying to sacrifice again. Some abilities allow the user to copy someone else’s ability but only for a short while.

There are 5 families that rule this world and maintain the order: the Readers, the four other Families represent the strongest of each school of ability. Enhancers are represented by the Cargesta, known for their ability of super Speed. Psychics are represented by the Terla, known for extremely powerful telekinesis. The elementals are represented by the Jilap, known for their potent manipulation of darkness. The Cursed are represented by the Harp - Tring, they are known for void manipulation while not inherently evil they are feared for their ability.

The Church of the Entity is the main religion of this country which has replaced the old gods which are revered by the Sect of the Old Ones. they gain their power through the complete sacrifice of their soul to the old gods after refusing the sacrifice at 17.

If during the sacrifice at 17 one chooses to sacrifice part of their will, they become a Monk of the Entity and give their life to the church as protectors of the land.

Each major Family controls one of the regions as the leaders. If a new powerful family emerges and can best the original one, power is transmitted to the new Family. This is however very rare.

Someone who uses the magic od sacrifice is known as a DemiMen for the simple reason that they lose part of themselves.

I thank you for having read my stuff and i hope you enjoyed it and have some tips

 

[Mothyards]

So as to be somewhat organized, I’m going to go down like a list and bring up stuff as it is brought up in your explanation.



I assume this entity has a reason for what they did, and that it might be explained in the story? I’d be interested into the reasons why as a hook in the story. For now though, I’m going to go forward with the assumption that it’s reasons are not important for the magic system as they are not explained here.



The magic types. I will admit upfront that I sometimes and biased against magic like this, so I do apologize if something seems unfairly biased against your magic, I will do my best not to and of course it is more than fair to ignore, or only pick from, criticism that you feel doesn’t help your vision.

But going into the magic, the first and only real issue I see is under the concept of the cursed magic power, specifically the inclusion of the idea of energy manipulation.

Life and Death I can understand, and including powers that would go against cultural ideals and norms here could be a good reason to have them listed as such, though having it as a bit of a grab bag of powers does come with the burden of explaining why cursed magic is so much different than the rest. But to get back on point, you said energy manipulation is cursed, but you list both light and fire under elemental, both are forms of energy and any manipulation of them would inherently be energy manipulation, you could also say the same for telekinetic powers as you would manipulate kinetic energy in a sense. I think there are ways around that but I think having some focus on why cursed is more random and removing types like energy manipulation that are done elsewhere could help to keep readers (such as nosey assholes like me lol) from questioning why this double standard exists.



I also wanted to break my rule a but because it will link back up to the powers, however I think it would be interesting to label the powers more on the houses that rule them than the individual powers. This is more up to your favorite flavor, some people like new words and others don’t, and we all know using to many made up words can confuse a reader.

But explaining the powers in a way such as, “Those under the School of Cargesta are able to enhance themselves and their capabilities.” would put a greater sense of power on the houses over the people and the types of magic. By linking a power to a house, you give the idea that said house is truly in charge of its power.



I think the last two things I wanted to bring up are entirely negative, so I do apologize for more or less ending this on a sour note.

The first being that 17 is much too young for such a sacrifice. It screams of early 2010’s dystopia novels and most people that age are simply too young and immature to be making sacrifices like loosing their limbs or part of the minds and souls. I can see this being spun as a negative against the governmental system however so that is also a good idea to keep in mind.

And lastly the idea that a person who has the ability to learn more than one power is called and Avatar. Given what an avatar is, I feel like there needs to be a bit more of a reason than having another power, since that will just make a good chunk of readers think that you are using the name simply because The Last Airbender uses the name for a person who has more than one element, however they reason they use that is because in Hinduism and avatar is a descendant or incarnation of a deity or spirit upon the earth. As Aang and Kora are both reincarnations of a human and a spirit. I think a better name for these people may be something like a second scholar, or a second cleaved, or something along those lines, this depends on how you want to refer to people who have made a sacrifice, as I may have overlooked it but I don’t see if you said what they were called anywhere.



Overall, I think you’ve thought out a lot of your system and have a good foundation to use. Personally, I would make a few changes but I think the system as a whole is a good place to work from and if you so choose, to integrate into the idea of a story.

 

[pmmg]

Generally, I feel these things are great to work out for RPG's and game systems, but not really useful for stories. Having this much detail is probably more than a reader would want or need to know, and as one experiencing a story through a characters, does a character know all this, and make it important? While I am sure there could be, and I do think its useful for an author to know, I have never been strongly interested in a some complex magic system.

I am not sure what the story is here, but I hope it is along the lines of getting rid of the entity. I would be on that side.

 

[Queshire]

I can think up at least a dozen or so stories with systems as complex or more complex than this that have met success.

Now personally I wouldn't have a problem if we never learn more about the entity. It gives the whole thing this sort of cthulu-y eldritch abomination feel that works well with the sacrifice aspect. It could also be neat if the classification system is how society classifies them rather than being inherent to the magic system itself. That would make the cursed abilities those abilities that people view as cursed.

All in all not my personal cup of tea, but still very flavorful and a good match for spooky season.

 

[barrowyarrow]

I'm also new here but I might chime in with some ideas. As someone who also likes to draw out complex systems like this, my immediate question is what this Entity's purpose is for granting these abilities and why does it choose 17 as the day one gets them. If you want to keep this Entity's reasons unknown then that's fine but I feel like you as the writer should have some idea of what this Entity wants out of the deal.

My other note is that the catagories of magic you've laid out seem fairly vague which is good for a mystical feeling kind of magic but difficult to work with in terms of story telling. For example with the elemental powers. Are they just able to manipulate what's listed? Or could they use air magic to create a hydrogen bomb? In my opinion a magic system is best when you clearly define what it can't do. This way you can avoid having a magic system that feels like a skeleton key to every situation.

Besides that I really like the magic family lineages thing. Gives out a kind of magic mafia feel which I don't think I've seen often. I'm also always a sucker for an endritch creature so I'd be very curious to learn more about that if I were to read this in a book.