The Song of Magic

[Tom_Bombadil]

This is a dialogue between my mentor character and my hero (an Apprentice) about the basis of Magic in the story world. I will post how the system works as soon as possible. In the meantime, discussion would be most welcome.

“Magic is not a force to be manipulated. It has a will of its own that surrounds us and fills us. Our spells will only succeed if our minds and bodies are attuned to the Great Song of magic.”

“So we don't have any control over the spells we cast?”

“No. That is, if the spells we cast are not bent on the Song of Magic, it will either fail to work or it will bring horrific consequence. Necromancy is the working of spells in dissonance to the Song. Necromancers work by calling upon dark shades and demonic spirits.”

“But what is this 'Song of Magic' you keep talking about? I thought magic was power!”

“Then you thought wrong! See magic as power and nothing more has led to the fall of many mages. Magic is a song: it is the reverberating notes of the Great Melody begun with creation. You must look for it in all things: humans, animals, plants, rocks, pains, pleasures, beauty, ugliness, good, and even evil. Finding the Song is something you must do on your own. It is not my place nor my ability to teach to find it.”

 

[ThinkerX]

Except for the 'learn on your own' bit, it sounds like the magic of 'A wizard of EarthSea'. 'Patterning', and maybe naming.

 

[Fyri]

This is a really great metaphor for magic! It almost sounds like The Force but that might be because I just finished watching Star Wars...

 

[Mythopoet]

Question: is the "Song of Magic" a metaphor or is it an objective reality? Can practitioners of magic actually here musical notes in the world? It sounds a bit animistic, rather than similar to the magic of Earthsea which is founded on true names.

 

[wordwalker]

Earthsea is definitely the first thing I thought of; the other was Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, partly about an inept wizard slowly learning that "the wizard calls, but the magic chooses."

 

[Tom_Bombadil]

For clarification: the "Song" is something that manifests itself in different ways throughout the mage's life; sometimes as a string of musical notes that came from no explicable memory; sometimes an image that continually recurs sometimes in their imagination, sometimes in reality. It will guide the way the mages uses his/her magic in a subconscious manner. I hope that makes things more clear? Also about Earthsea; I have only read the first book, so I don't know much about that magic system. And about the force, it is really not very much like the force. The force is an energy field to be manipulated, my magic system has a mind of it's own.

@Mythopoet, my magic system is not based on true names; it is based on a variety of parameters which I will explain in my next post.