Magic Systems

[the25thstar]

After David Farland's passing last year, I unearthed my copies of his Runelords series and read them. Found myself loving the endowment shenanigans and bits and pieces that went with it, such as multiple runelords linking to one another and forming a 'serpent'. Or that magical super-strength doesn't simply mean you can lift a house, you need an equally 'super' body to bear such weight.

What other unusual magic systems have you all come across, and which was your favorite, or caught your attention the most?

 

[Queshire]

Hm? Unusual magic systems?

I suppose the one that stands out to me most recently is the system from the game Honkai Star Rail. It starts out simple enough. When something comes to embody a concept to a high enough level they are able to ascend as a godlike being known as an Aeon and those who align with the Aeon's concept, known as following their Path, gain thematically appropriate powers.

The interesting bit is that instead of the classic sort of gods like a god of fire or war or the forge the Aeons are more about philosophies and one's outlook on life. You've got things like an Aeon of Destruction or Harmony, but also an Aeon of Erudition for those that look at the world with curiosity and something to be studied and even an Aeon of Nihilism.

This ends up having some interesting implications and complexity. One character is a bright and cheerful young girl that always goes around with her camera, but instead of being on something like the Path of Abundance or the Path of Harmony she's on the Path of Preservation which, as the name suggests, is about preserving what's most important to you. This is a lot more reasonable once you find out her backstory and learn that she was found frozen in a chunk of magic ice, has no memories of her past and probably fears winding up back in that situation again.

It also offers interesting takes on the same path. Among the characters on the Path of Nihility you've got a guy with all the charm of a well meaning used car salesman, a military intelligence officer whose job means digging up everyone's deepest secrets and seems quite cheerful about doing so and a guy who spent his entire lifetime, possibly several lifetimes fighting to protect his home world against those that would destroy it only to end up exiled to a completely different world with no way back. Furthermore, in the game lore one of the major NPC factions following the Path of Nihility are those determined to prove to the Aeon of Nihility that the world isn't meaningless and is worth living in. Maybe I'm looking too deep into things, but it could be argued that following an Aeon's Path is a result of understanding the truth of their Path by either naturally living it or seeing its extent and rejecting it.

Now! On a game mechanics level the Paths, or at least some of them, play the role of character classes because it's a sci fi setting and it'd be weird to have like Rangers or Paladins, but the way they connect the philosophical aspects to the mechanics is interesting.

The Path of Nihility focused on looking on the darkest humanity has to offer as it does focuses on debuffing enemies.
The Path of Harmony which is focused on getting everyone to work together offers buffs and advantages to your allies.
The Path of Abundance offers healing which fits someone motivated to see people grow & prosper more and more.
The Path of the Hunt range from stubborn single mindedness to just a focusing on what needs to be done mostly does single target damage.

The Path of Erudition includes those motivated by curiosity, who seek to study the world or look beyond themselves. They focus on AoE damage. On one hand there's a simple joke of 'haha, smart people are wizards,' but it could be argued that curiosity spreads outwards or that as one studies the world one becomes able to affect it. In either case it supports abilities that spread across multiple enemies.

The Path of Destruction is the most complex one from both a philosophical standpoint and from a mechanical one. Admittedly that's fitting for what's set up to be the game's big bad. Each player character on the Path of Destruction has abilities connected to pure brawling in some way, but they go about it in different ways.

The main character starts out nameless and memoryless and is thrown into a situation where the space station they're on is attacked by monsters. Fighting is a part of their life from the moment they open their eyes. As benefiting the initial main character they're well rounded with damage of an element that's generally not resisted that heavily, decent single target or multi target attacks and an out of combat technique that restores the party's health so that they can keep fighting for longer.

The second one met is the chief of security for the space station, though instead of focusing on protecting others he focuses on throwing himself into his work and defeating any threat. He gets stronger the lower his health is and his skill costs health instead of skill points which both strengthens him and leaves those skill points free for other characters to use.

Next is an excitable little girl that just finds fighting fun. Her abilities are focused on just attacking, attacking and attacking. She can set people on fire, deal more damage to those on fire and has an ultimate ability that makes her next ability that sets people on fire end up setting multiple people on fire instead.

Then there's a different young girl. She was raised under the guardianship of a powerful robot and for all her life was surrounded by the tension of a community on the edge. There's tension between the robots and townsfolk, tension between those vagrants who seek protection in the domain of the robots and the townsfolk and further tension between the townsfolk under the ground and those above the ground. Her abilities in battle break that tension. They work when she's attacked. It reduces the damage she takes and lets her counter attack.

Finally there's a last character on the Path of Destruction, but he's not actually in the game yet so I don't know as much. Evidently he views himself as a blade to be wielded by the organization he's a part of rather than a person. It seems that his abilities focus on trading HP for advantages in combat and then cashing them in at the end to heal himself back up.

There's also a number of Aeons that aren't connected to character classes, but exist in lore. The Aeon of the Trailblazer is dead, but central to the plot. It's a path of exploration and connecting distant people. Then there's Aeons of Voracity (bestial hunger), Elation, Rememberance, Beauty, Propagation (think Zerg or grey goo scenario,) Enigmata (the joy in something being unknown,) Finality and Equilibrium.

*cough* Sorry, this whole post got a bit away from me.

 

[pmmg]

I don't know that I can pick out magic systems that I admired simply because of the system itself, and probably that would be limited to a gaming system of some sort. I could speak to my own, which is kind of based on ley lines and pools of sources of magic, but I am not sure the reader would even know it reading my story.

One scene involving magic that I enjoyed was a battle between wizards in the Belgariad story. The two wizard each made demons to fight each other, and the one wizard beat the other because his demon bled, and the others didn't. The extra detail kind of shook the others belief in the creation he made, and the doubt undid him.

I also liked the way Elric had objects imbued with demons or virtues that gave them power. But I am not sure that was a system.

I dont know...I think in part, I am not terribly interested in systems as much a story. I notice there are geeks who appear in my youtube feeds with things like, Did luke use a dark force power when he did X... as if there some rule he broke. I dont go for that. If I understand the forces or the magic, why would anything be unavailable to me? I could see not choosing it for reasons of character, but power spent is power spent.