My Magic System

[thetraveler]

Asking for opinion on the magic system in my book. Here goes:

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There are three realities-
The Shadow Realm
The Realm of Earth
The Under

The Shadow Realm and the Under bleed into the Realm of Earth and are the basis of the two most naturally powerful forms of magic. In the Realm of Earth, every person's soul is made of three parts: Their shadow, their mind, and their blood. Each realm has magic vested in a different part of the soul.

The Shadow Realm comes into the Realm of Earth through a person's shadow. This is why magic using the energies of the Shadow Realm works best during the day. The longer a person's shadow gets(i.e., the closer to sunup or sundown it is) the more powerful their shadow-magic can become.

The Realm of Earth's magic, or what most refer to as 'natural magic' is in a person's mind. The stronger their level of concentration, the more powerful magic they can work. Of course, attempting magical feats stronger than one can hold onto with one's mental focus results in crippling headaches and possibly even worse. The same result would come from distracting someone trying to work a great natural magic. Also, the more sentient creatures nearby, the stronger natural magic has the potential to be. That's why it is favored by mages on battlefields, the amount of people around amplifies the effect of whatever spell they're casting at no personal cost to them.

The Under's magic comes into the Realm of Earth through a person's blood. It is generally what people refer to as 'black magic'. The more blood used, the more powerful the magic that can be worked. The magic only works while the blood is still wet. If the blood has dried, the magic will stop or cease to be workable(for instance, if one used blood magic to make a translocation spell, the gateway would only be a viable path while the blood spilled was still wet. It would close once dry). One can use one's own blood for minor spells, and it doesn't even have to leave one's own body. However, greater spells (in one chapter of my book an entire company of goblins and three magicians are translocated a week's journey) require massive amounts of blood, and so the workers of the Under's magic usually resort to human sacrifice.


Each magic can be used for a lot of the same tasks(for instance, all types have their own translocation spells), but each is better at its own category. Here is a list of the things each type is most proficient at:

Shadow-magic-
Translocation(Making things disappear in one place and reappear in another)
Healing(Any kind, strong users can heal emotional wounds)
'Buffer' spells(Wards and the like)

Natural magic-
Telekinesis/telepathy(Moving objects at a distance, reading minds)
'Battle' magic(think of the D&D spell magic missile)

Blood/black-magic-
Necromancy(If it involves someone who used to be dead or a spirit who hangs around corpses...)
Element control(Bringing up storms, earthquakes, etc.)

Each type of magic has a particular 'focus', that is, an object that users tend to favor having to aid in the magic. Blood-magicians typically carry around knives for obtaining blood, natural magicians favor crystals to gaze into or anything they can focus on and keep from becoming distracted(because who wants an anuerism?), and shadow-mages like big, billow capes and typically carry lanterns to help cast bigger shadows.

The risk factor of each magic is different. With shadow-magic, there is virtually no risk, only that of your spell being deflected back at you. Natural magic has the potential to cause several brain-damaging consequences, but rarely results in outright death. Blood magic will kill you if you underestimate the amount of blood needed for a spell.

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Those are the basics of the magic system in my world. Tell me what you think, and if you spot any gaping holes, please point them out. Thanks! Note: This isn't meant to go into what happens in the Shadow Realm and the Under, merely the fact that they exist outside the Realm of Earth, where the story takes place.

 

[Queshire]

Well....

This might seem a little blunt, but my first thought on reading it was "great, just another generic fantasy magic system,"
It seemed that you were trying too much to be unique without really getting there. I'm afraid that you're overthinking things, fixing things that aren't broken.

It seems to mean, that you basically have white magic, black magic, and psychic powers with the names changed. Admittedly, I do like some of the things you did, the ability to cause catastrophes with blood magic and shadow falling under dark is not evil, but that's not enough for me to get over the fact that they're basically white magic, black magic, and psychic powers.

There's potential here, but I think you either need to get rid of the differences or increase them. Have each magic have a certain unique and seperate niche. Make them special and give a concrete reason for using one over the other.

I personally would have Shadow magic being only able to and the only magic able to move things, Natural magic being only able to and the only magic able to control the elements (mainly because controlling the elements sounds more natural then psychic powers) and Blood Magic being only able and the only magic able to manipulate bodies, not just necromancy but healing and buffs, turning it from EVIL!!! to unpleasent but neccesary. I would also add other magic for other specific uses like Mind magic for psychic powers.

Now, this is just my idea, ultimately it's up to you and anything written well enough will be good, so if you like it then go for it.

 

[Anders Ämting]

The Shadow Realm comes into the Realm of Earth through a person's shadow. This is why magic using the energies of the Shadow Realm works best during the day. The longer a person's shadow gets(i.e., the closer to sunup or sundown it is) the more powerful their shadow-magic can become.

So, basically, a shadow mage is at his strongest just before he becomes at his weakest? That's a nice touch.

When you say that it works better in the day, does that mean that shadow magic is still stronger at high noon (when the shadow would be at its shortest) then it is at night?

Does artificial light work as well as sunlight? Could one work around the night thing by, say, building something like a powerful search light to project an extremely long shadow?

What happens if two or more shadow magices allow their shadows to overlap? Would that let them cast more powerful spells in tandem?

Depending on the details, this sounds like an type of magic with easily exploitable mechanics for rather little cost.

The Realm of Earth's magic, or what most refer to as 'natural magic' is in a person's mind. The stronger their level of concentration, the more powerful magic they can work. Of course, attempting magical feats stronger than one can hold onto with one's mental focus results in crippling headaches and possibly even worse. The same result would come from distracting someone trying to work a great natural magic. Also, the more sentient creatures nearby, the stronger natural magic has the potential to be. That's why it is favored by mages on battlefields, the amount of people around amplifies the effect of whatever spell they're casting at no personal cost to them.

Psychic powers, gotcha. The part of them becoming stronger just by being in crowds may be a bit broken, though. Dunno, depends on the fine details I guess.

Oh, and did you meant sentient or sapient? There's a bit of a differance: You are sapient, a hamster is sentient.

The Under's magic comes into the Realm of Earth through a person's blood. It is generally what people refer to as 'black magic'. The more blood used, the more powerful the magic that can be worked. The magic only works while the blood is still wet. If the blood has dried, the magic will stop or cease to be workable(for instance, if one used blood magic to make a translocation spell, the gateway would only be a viable path while the blood spilled was still wet. It would close once dry). One can use one's own blood for minor spells, and it doesn't even have to leave one's own body. However, greater spells (in one chapter of my book an entire company of goblins and three magicians are translocated a week's journey) require massive amounts of blood, and so the workers of the Under's magic usually resort to human sacrifice.

On one hand, it seems to me like there is no good reason not to at least learn how to cast blood magic using your own blood, unless doing so causes anemia or something. You're always going to carry that stuff with you, after all.

On the other hand, this sounds like the most impractical of the three magic types by far. People generally go to great lenghts to keep their blood inside their bodies, so getting sarifices for larger spells is going to be bothersome. There's always animals, of course, but large quantities of livestock are expensive. Even if you steal/kidnap all your sacrifices, that's still only workable if you have like your own private army.

So, unless blood magic is way more powerful then the other two, I must ask why anyone would bother with it and not take up shadow magic instead. All they need is light from the right angle.

Anyway, a few general questions:

-How do the three realities factor into your story aside from providing magic?
-Is magic something you are born with or something you can be taught?
-Can one person use more then one type of magic?

 

[thetraveler]

So, basically, a shadow mage is at his strongest just before he becomes at his weakest? That's a nice touch.

When you say that it works better in the day, does that mean that shadow magic is still stronger at high noon (when the shadow would be at its shortest) then it is at night?

Does artificial light work as well as sunlight? Could one work around the night thing by, say, building something like a powerful search light to project an extremely long shadow?

What happens if two or more shadow magices allow their shadows to overlap? Would that let them cast more powerful spells in tandem?

Depending on the details, this sounds like an type of magic with easily exploitable mechanics for rather little cost.



Psychic powers, gotcha. The part of them becoming stronger just by being in crowds may be a bit broken, though. Dunno, depends on the fine details I guess.

Oh, and did you meant sentient or sapient? There's a bit of a differance: You are sapient, a hamster is sentient.



On one hand, it seems to me like there is no good reason not to at least learn how to cast blood magic using your own blood, unless doing so causes anemia or something. You're always going to carry that stuff with you, after all.

On the other hand, this sounds like the most impractical of the three magic types by far. People generally go to great lenghts to keep their blood inside their bodies, so getting sarifices for larger spells is going to be bothersome. There's always animals, of course, but large quantities of livestock are expensive. Even if you steal/kidnap all your sacrifices, that's still only workable if you have like your own private army.

So, unless blood magic is way more powerful then the other two, I must ask why anyone would bother with it and not take up shadow magic instead. All they need is light from the right angle.

Anyway, a few general questions:

-How do the three realities factor into your story aside from providing magic?
-Is magic something you are born with or something you can be taught?
-Can one person use more then one type of magic?

To start off with, blood magic is indeed far more powerful than any other of the magics, because it doesn't rely on the spellcaster's physical traits to be fueled. Also, necromancy and element control tend to have far more devastating effects than telekinesis and warding. The element control than can be worked with blood magic is on a disturbingly large scale when enough blood is obtained--later in the book, one of the characters sacrifices a couple hundred people and causes an entire city to be swallowed by an earthquake.

And I did probably mis-say that. Shadow magic works best at sunrise and sunset, worst at noon. It's almost impossible to cast at noon. Artificial light can indeed be as efficient as the sun, it's just that you need a lot of fire to do that. Bonfires are a favorite.

The three realities do factor into the story, though not in book 1. Essentially, there's a war between two equal and opposite deities, the Under was supposed to be heaven, but then it got perverted by one of the deities into more of a hellish place. The Shadow Realm is home to the wraiths and the shadow-kind, who have a big part to play later on in the series.

Magic can be learned, though some people are naturally more skilled at it, as with anything.

Yup. No real restraints on using different kinds of magic. The systems are not aligned,they're merely natural forces put in by the creator of the worlds, and as such, you don't need to say three prayers and a bow to the east four times before you cast a spell using Shadow Magic, or anything like that.

 

[thetraveler]

And a definitely see what you mean about the crowds thing being broken. I'll probably leave that out.

 

[Saigonnus]

The system I use is somewhat generic but all-encompassing, but takes into consideration there isn't really any "black" or "white" magic... how it's used depends on the magic-user. Druids or Magic-users in my world tap into the energies around them, they have their own energy and use that to bring the things they need to them. Either the energy they draw to them is actually turned into a specific effect or they can use certain characteristics of what the energy comes from to affect how a spell works. For example, a Druid may use the natural properties of water to slow an enemy's actions; making his/hers that much more effective. Or use the natural energies of the earth to encourage a tree to grab an enemy, or the grasses grow to restrain them for a time. Shadow energy is found in any dark place (a hollow tree, log or whatever) and can be used with the natural properties of light to create a field of invisibility or mixed with the natural properties of stone to create a wall of shadow.

I think it works well enough for my story that I haven't even considered other methods.