Trying to put together my Magic Metal magic system. But I feel like its a mile wide and not very deep.

[Soul]

Help with my magical living metal magic system
I need help making my magic system more put together. I have a bunch of disparate ideas, at this point I have culled most of them, but I still cannot seem to fit together whats left. I will skip over all the backstory and world building to keep this short.


The setting is something similar to the industrial revolution, except with the use of Biometal and Logograms to create contraptions. I plan on their being a focus on mechs.

Biometal is a living metal that can interface with or take the place of organic material with little complication. It can be found naturally on the planet, but also inside of people.Essentially after surviving a disease that is actually just nanites trying to restructure your body, people will have a certain amount of Biometal in them.

Where I am having issues is what people with enough Biometal in them ought to be able to do. My setting functions as a trinity of Mind, Body, and Soul. Typically with one “ability” being boudn to each.

Soul: Flesh Changing/Proliferation-If you have enough biometal you can change your shape(think werewolf changing). Those who get really good at this can proliferate a kind of biometal/flesh. This is what is threaded through the strongest mechs, making them biomechanical giants.

Body: Biometal Shaping- Kind of in line with the previous, those with a high enough body content can shape biometal to their will. They can also animate it, allowing them to create complex contraptions.

Mind: Kinetics- Plumbing the Clockworks can yield explosive results, a mage can get a Logogram inscribed upon the Biometal in their body. Allowing them control over a kind of energy that one’s own body can produce. This typically manifests as control over Thermal, Electric, or Kinetic Energy.


An core idea I had was the mechs functioning as foci for mages, allowing them to project their kinetic powers farther and with more sophistication than they otherwise would be able. I also really like the idea of a mech being crushed, only for the pilot to jump out as some monstrous hybrid, their claws alight with thermal power. I just it to get to all stick together. Or maybe these do already and I am just being to pedantic?

 

[pmmg]

I like this idea, but I think I would take it both ways. What will they become and what will it cost.

Too much metal might give them near unlimited abilities, but the cost should be a compensorate loss of soul or mind, as the metal mind starts to take over with a mind of its own. Prehaps creating more and more of a monster as it goes. Thus, there is no limit to how much metal, and what it can shape, but that its cost may get so high, people dont want it.

Without cost, why ever stop collecting metal?

 

[Soul]

I like this idea, but I think I would take it both ways. What will they become and what will it cost.

Too much metal might give them near unlimited abilities, but the cost should be a compensorate loss of soul or mind, as the metal mind starts to take over with a mind of its own. Prehaps creating more and more of a monster as it goes. Thus, there is no limit to how much metal, and what it can shape, but that its cost may get so high, people dont want it.

Without cost, why ever stop collecting metal?

Thats more or less the premise already. The diease, the Withering, is trying to turn you into somthing new. The more you suffer from the diease the higher the chance you die, but also the more biometal in your body the strong a mage you will be. There is almost no way to incease your biometal after the intial infection, and you cannot be reinfected. So typically what you get is what you have. However those with high body concentation can sometime struggle with more anamlist urges that have been written into their brains.

The drawbacks come in two forms. Kinetics still observes(mostly) the rules of thermodynamics. So you cannot just create energy from nothing, instead you need something called Prism Stones. Additnally, just like any machine, using your abilities generates heat. To much and you will cook yourself.

 

[RoccO]

I have a similar idea to your story mechanic, but I made it out of the scrapyard. There was a general fallout, with no more fuel to produce electricity, so they turned to magic and eventually found the perfect solution, these logograms you speak of.

Mechs are a fantastic idea if you want the mages to sit in the background soaking up power. They are virtually indestructible, so the mage with the most mech experience is bound to have the upper advantage. If the mech is a living entity, that is something you will need to decide upon with the magic system.

Another solution to the problem of overpowered, what you would call clean energy, is to have the side that is more orc or maybe more slovenly. They have a broken system somewhere, that is where enemies come from, so the mech from another land could fight with equanimity, searching for a solution, not a reason.

If I was inhabiting your world I would look for reassurance in peace and strength, whilst the mages look through mind, body and soul, maybe using my own biometal to produce thermal, electric, kinetic energy for my trade, in the industry of my choosing, revolutionary if able.