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Time-based Magic System

Glorfindel

New Member
So I am just started to build a world and I wanted to start with at least the basics of the magic system to get it going and see its influence on the world as a whole. I thought what would be really cool and quite unique is some sort of magic system based on time. In general users would be quite rare as if they were more common this could get very complicated very quickly.

A user would draw time from their own bodies and transfer it to a) something/someone else or b) the area around them. For instance, a user could make themselves (their body) three seconds older (taking time away) and make either a) or b) 3 seconds younger. They could also go in the other direction. The limits are basically a user cannot go past their body's limits, not too young or too old. I'm not sure if the time that is transferred should be directly proportional to the time taken.

So this is pretty primitive so far and any thoughts would be great. Anything I can flesh this out with or restrict it further would be good. Thanks

Side note: I'd like the system to be fairly scientific in my mind in that I understand exactly how and why it works, however, this doesn't mean it will be this way in the book/series or however I decide to use this.
 

DeathtoTrite

Troubadour
Sounds interesting! I'm reminded a little of witches in the movie stardust or the tv show Penny Dreadful, where magic ages them and they are made youthful by sources of power (although it sounds like in your case, its a more literal translation)

When you say the area around them, how does that work? So, could a magic user just age a rock whenever they feel like being younger?

How is the locality affected determined? How is a person distinguished from an environment?
 

Glorfindel

New Member
So there would be two basic uses, or four depending on how you look at it. You can either take or add time to yourself or you can take or add time to something else. There are instances where changing your own time may be useful or changing something else time may be useful. And time, like energy or matter in the real world, has to be conserved. So if you take from yourself you must add to something else and vice versa.

What I meant by the area around them is they could add or take time from everything in a certain radius around them. I do want there to be more restrictions on this, I don't want users to be able to use this half-hazardly like in Harry Potter or anything, magic should be more conserved and carefully used. I'm just not sure how to go about adding restrictions that make sense.

Another idea I had was to distinguish from material and sentience. (I want the book to have a conflict of religions both inter and interpersonal so this could be a way to do that.) So users can age the body but their identities, memories, knowledge, etc are outside of time. I think this could be an interesting thing to have characters explore i.e. what is this sentience, what has it, and why do some things have it and others don't.
 

Ifritus

Dreamer
Hey Glofindel...

So my interpretation of the Original post... is that you want to transfer Age... rather than time? (Since that's how you worded it?)

Or are we actually talking about Time capital T magic... or stage of divisional microorganisms in sentient creatures? (Ageing)

Have you ever read the Marc Turner work "When the Heavens Fall) bk1 of the Chronicles of Exile... I can't remember specifics, but he had one character due to lineage and perhaps magic able to be "outside" time or manipulate its flow... is this what you are after?

Or is it more Prince of Persia? Where you can reverse time with a limit to how far back? Or you can slow down time with a limit for how long?.
----
My take on the equilibrium of adding age to take age off (passage of time) could maybe work in the sense of... the MC wants to act particularly fast for a minute of time?... so he has to trade that one minute of speed with someone who experiences it in slow motion? And then you could amplify the consequences? Say someone is a Warrior who is in battle constantly and uses his time magic a lot? So it adds up... in that he ages his body past that what he should actually appear to be?

Maybe exponential effects? The more you use it the more it ages you?

Consequently you could balance it the other side for time to pass by in slow motion for the MC but he can act abnormally fast in the situation but it costs doubly the age?

Just a few thought on the subject... time magic in general is rather tricky which I suppose is why there isn't a lot of material to draw from?
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Glorfindel:

I like the idea. My question about taking "time" away from a radius around them (as opposed to the use of magic prematurely aging them) is how you deal with the fact that this local area is now out of phase with the rest of the universe. Space and time are fundamentally intertwined--time is an inherent property of the physical universe around us. When you alter time in a local area, you haven't just aged living matter within the field of effect, you've thrown that local area out of phase in a fundamental way with the rest of the universe. The question that immediately comes to mind is: what ramifications would this have? How would the uniform re-establish phasing, or would it? Could it? &c.
 
Hi,

I've just done a mage with time bending spells. In essence he could stretch time around himself so seconds lasted longer and so do far more - basically a form of haste spell. He could also shrink space so in essence when he ran it was warp drive baby!!! He could run between cities in a matter of minutes. The restrictions I placed on him were mostly that time would only allow him to bend it so far. So he couldn't freeze it or get it to run backwards.

Your system is different, but strikes me as being somewhat less useful. If all it is is a minor deaging affect, what'she going to do with it? Initially I thought it would include memories, which are essentially physiological so de-aging would wipe them out. But you said not. And three seconds seems pointless. I mean I would pay quite a lot to be able to de-age myself twenty years - but three seconds? I don't know if they make coins that small! So the only value I can see would be that if it de-ages a part of the world and he ends up back where he was three seconds before - it could be a good way to avoid getting killed. But that doesn't work if part of the world is getting older and parts getting younger - you'd end up with a very messed up world.

So my question for you is - what's the value of this magic? Or is it meant that the hero has some form of pointless magic?

Cheers, Greg.
 
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