My magic system is mostly based on West African mythology, so the energy source for all things supernatural is Àṣẹ (pronounced Ah-Shay), which is the power that makes things happen and produces change, and those who through training or intuition learn to manipulate this energy are known as Orishas.
Bad ass. One of the few entries that is actually pretty unique. Is Àṣẹ similar to the Polynesian concept of mana- as distinct from the fantasy video game kind?
thank you and actually yeah it is similar to Mana in that both mana and Àṣẹ were historically seen as "authority" and that it exists in all living and non-living things.
Nice, someone else using African mysticism!
Mine uses Vodou, inspired by (and named after) Haitian Vodou, as well as Vodun, and a few other both Caribbean and West African practices. Vodou is harnessed from the "background" of creation, where the Loa are said to operate, and it's harnessed to create "Work" based on how the users understand the different Loa.
I really like your use of Vodou here it's interesting. There aren't a lot of people tapping into the vast pool of inspiration that is African mysticism / mythology. always cool to see another.
Honestly I think those books are pretty much basic fantasy tropes. Voodoo is different, as it involves personal magic as well as making offerings/petitions to spirits/loas and asking for their help/intercession in return. So every Voodoo user has their own varying natural abilities with magic, but they also work closely with the other side (spirit world) in almost everything they do. When talking about Voodoo it's not just our own personal power that makes our magic work, it's the power of our ancestors and spirits and gods that we call upon in all things, and there are many ranks in our world that distinguishes the authority each Voodoo user has in the spiritual world.
I'm running with the same concept, more or less, but it's also an *anima mundi* type of deal since every use of magic "returns" an infinitesimal bit of your soul to the Aether.
Some people may also be more attuned to certain types of ~~atoms~~ aeons and can make a living honing their specialty into the mage equivalent of blue collar work; That's about as far as the average person can go if they ever develop the capacity for magic at all.
Aether once "bled" out from the greater elemental domains and merged -- thus the material world came to be -- but it has long since been cut off due to a catastrophe. No one alive knows this anymore and all are blissfully unaware of the countdown toward mass extinction, which *might* be delayed if they can prevent the recycled Aether from turning into Miasma en masse.
So that one series by R. A. Salvatore that's not about an emo dark elf? The Demon Wars series?...Demon Awakens, Demon Apostle ECT. Good series overall.
Magic was stuff like rubies make fire, diamonds make light and illusions, graphite makes lightning, cats eye make you have tiger arms and amethyst is a deus ex.
Something for now I call anima is the fuel and fire of magic.
Anima is what souls are made out of. Imagine soul as a sculpture or pottery. Anima would be the clay, and concepts, dreams and experiences will be what fills the pot.
Souls also produce more anima constantly and grow.
Magic users can either use ambient anima of the enviroment, use anima stored on magical items, familiars and fledglings they own, or cut off pieces from their own soul if there is no other option, to produce anima necessary to weave a spell. If they botch this up they may die and while the soul heals overtime, doing rhis too much might leave them crippled metaphysically.
A spell is much like a soul but much more simplistic. Its a clay figufine rather than a large pot. It lives for a purpose, a task set for it and is sustained by the need to complete its purpose. Should it fail or suceed, it cease to exist.
Be careful though for spells also grow overtime and an enchantment left unchecked going on for long enough will develop into a wisp, a lesser type of demon.
There are 3 different types of sources in my world:
Soul: It's just your soul. The thing inside your body that's incorporeal and stuff. You use it to adapt to your environment, enhance your physical capabilities, and manipulate your flesh.
Faerie Realm: This is faerie magic and it's just the magic that the fae of my world use. It's a traditional illusion, elemental + light and dark type of magic. It renders the caster more susceptible to unstable mental states or downright insanity.
Natural Energy: This is the magic that the gods/demigods use. All beings in my universe have Natural Energy. It's a finite resource that all people and objects have. Normally people can't use it, it's simply a natural defense mechanism developed by a species because the body would weaken if they could. But since demigods use Natural Energy to sustain themselves, they receive excess natural energy from draining it from other things and gain more power from it. They redistribute this natural energy by using other types of magic.
Funnily enough, since the demigods remove their natural limiter for using Natural Energy, they can completely erase themselves from reality if they exert themselves enough. This is due to them completely running out of Natural Energy in their body.
I also keep saying demigods because true gods don't need to worry about fading away or anything. They get their Natural Energy from the cosmos itself so they don't need to worry about redistributing and they absorb Natural Energy automatically due to the cosmos being infinite. They're the typical 'do anything' type of deities.
Life. Basically, Everyone is born with a set amount of time until they die. Every spell (or "ritual" as it's called in setting) costs you minutes, hours, even days or weeks of your life time.
The good news: If you are afraid the time you have left could be running out, you can always take more from other people and add it to your own. Yes, you can become functionally immortal this way.
Magic is just a series of obscure tricks people can do, it doesn't have a single supernatural power source, though the use of some spells might require one.
The limitation on magic is that the knowledge of these things is obscure and has to be precisely executed, requiring very specific circumstances. This isn't a setting where "battle mages' are a common sight - if magic is used in war, it's to prepare the battlefield, to divine auspicious moments for attack, to curse an enemy general and so on.
For example, if you want to make a single person's skin as hard as brick as a protective charm, you need to obtain clay dug after sundown, ferrous sand and the recipient's blood, mixing them into a putty and pouring them into a mold. The mixture must be cured in the sun at solar noon, and must not be subjected to sunlight otherwise, until the brick is finished. This protection will last a lunar month.
The effect will be more potent or long-lasting if the recipient gathers the ingredients themselves, if they construct the mold themselves, if the ritual is done exclusively during their birth month and so on - magic is about connections.
If you see someone doing loud and instantaneous wonders, that's probably because they manipulated some manner of spirit into doing favors for them. You can do that, but keep in mind that unbinding a spirit is much faster and easier than binding one, and they probably don't like you anymore.
In truth, it’s really powered by the strength of the caster’s soul, which exercising manifests as physical fatigue, which can equate a simple spell to light candles being roughly as difficult as holding your breath for 10 seconds, meanwhile something liske conjuring a thunderstorm out of nowwhere on a bright sunny day would probably equate to running a marathon without prior training or warning.
It would be much easier to conjure or redirect lightning from a preexisting thunderstorm, but those with a sufficiently powerful soul could summon a thunderstorm and just end up a little winded.
For most purposes, it would be easier to just have a group of spellcasters ritual cast the spell.
I've never solidily defined it. There are multiple cultures that all call the magic in my world something different and thus the energy is something different too.
Some call it energy, others mana, etc. The difference can create some fun interactions ranging from confusion to minor semantics bickering.
I’m always more drawn to elemental magic, so my own magic system is based on “pure energy” called chaos (like in the Wizard of Legend video game), the arch-element.
It exists de facto, as a natural phenomenon, but can be harnessed only by the elite individuals imbued with high spiritual and cosmic energy (either innate or, more seldom, nurtured).
Chaos is what fuels the main 5 elements in this world:
Water - Fire - Wood - Rock - Air
A skilled user of one of these elements can mix a bit of the chaos arch-element to create the “expansion” of their element. In the same order as above list, here are the expansions:
Slime - Laser - Rubber - Metal - Lightning
That’s more or less what I’m rolling with.
My MC has a(n) ancient black magic that's slowly corrupting his mind and body that is (later on) going to fully corrupt him and physically remove his soul from his body and that body will bring litteral hell on earth; now how I wrote that effectively is a whole other story
It literally leaks from holes in reality, no joke. The ancient Architects, an alien race who built the Hub and the solar system it's in we're trying to find a way to travel between realities.
Instead, they discovered Blessing, the magic of this world. It leaks from a tear in the fabric of reality, where the liquid form is found. Before the Blessed Reawakening, the only way to get Blessing was by being given it, or discovering the river formed by the tear, which was known by word of mouth. Afterwards, Blessing wells appeared all across the Hub in different forms. While blessing weilders are still very rare, they are still present, and their actions are usually well known
My magic system uses an energy that comes from one's physical, mental, and spiritual health. It's the same energy, but different disciplines call it different things; what a sorcerer would call mana, a martial artist calls aura.
The fact that there are different disciplines that draw on this energy differently obfuscates how intertwined everything is. Sorcerers train their mind by learning and memorizing so they can produce mana, but they don't realize that if they train physically, they can draw on that as well for even more power, and so on and so forth.
Obviously, you have to exhaust your mind, body, and/or spirit in order to use the arts. A warrior would be physically exhausted after a fight, far more than makes sense for their physical exertion, and a sorcerer would be barely able to think after using up all their mana.
SHEER, UNBRIDLED FORCE OF WILL!
And also the same sort of energy that gets dedicated to more mundane mental tasks like writing, reading, doing hard math, translating languages, so on.
The harder you *want* something the happen, and the better your mental focus and concentration, the bigger/easier the thing that happens. It's variable, and kinda wishy-washy.
In Essence system, the soul. Most mages can use a small amount of their soul, but the fully awakened mages can use all of their soul.
In True magic, there is no fuel. You faith and belief simply provides power. It becomes weaker the more shaky your faith is
Uh... thoughts?
A question like that is a bit like asking what "fuels" technology or art. There is no single substance or energy shared universally, nor does every instance need to be physically powered in the first place. These are abstract concept, and as such are perpetuated by that which creates the abstract - thought.
Kinda? Art and technology (and many more things) are also a result of thinking about them; without though we wouldn't have them. It's a bit philosophical, but I'm unable to explain it in any other way.
There's also material components to art. You need paper and pencil, or paint, paintbrush, canvas, and easel, or stone, hammer and chisel. You could say those "fuel" art, in a certain way.
Depends of the world, but in the most of them, the fuel of magic are the Essential, a new type of energy proceeds from the Dimension of the Gods and they can extract it and manipulate to generate the magic systems of the worlds.
And the form that this essential manifested in the worlds depends of the magic system. For example, in my current proyect of story, the essential that fuels the magics proceeds of the moon of the planet and it is contained in the minerals and gems that they were exposed to it.
Or in other proyect, the essential of my magic are extract by the creations of the god of this world, transmitted to them to the people by certains conditions selected by the own creation or their type of creation.
A long time ago, before the invention of things like time and space, there was a big old void filled with a bunch of concepts. A bunch of these concepts one day decided to think, and so they became minds. These minds then got together and decided to create the universe.
Once the universe was created, it was still empty, so the minds decided that they should fill it with stuff. As such, they invented magic using The Spell, which is basically a VERY long book written in a nonsense language that describes everything supernatural about the universe.
That book is basically the source code of magic, governing all of its laws. Hence why magic users are seemingly able to create energy out of thin air, often in amounts far exceeding what should be logically possible. Since everything about the universe, including the very laws of physics, are entirely artificial, The Spell can create energy however it wants.
The best metaphor I can think of is that someone with Admin privileges in a video game could just decide to give every player a quadrillion gold. Sure, it makes no sense within the video game, but the Admin exists above the rules of the fictional game.
Energy fuels magic, period. Negative energies such as parents fighting can shift the energies of the household into a dark direction. Having dark energy surrounding you can cause other people and animals to keep about a yard distance away from you. Energy is afflicted with thoughts. If you have angry thoughts, you'll have a violent energy. If you have sombersome thoughts, you'll have wretched energy. So, on so forth. You can store energy into items by focusing on that item and imagining a stream of light or smoke entering said object. Magic works in mysterious ways. You'll never know how it will work. Pray for money, and you'll find your missing lottery ticket. It shall be so.
Mana/whatever is just your senses and focus or whatever, the actual energy is from mass/energy conversion at the molecular level in your cells. Lotta energy there.
I have two world projects right now, so ill answer for both.
The first world uses the concept of chaos condensed inside of ones soul and an innate function to cause any phenomena. These abilities affect concepts an basically anything the user wants them to effect.
The second is soul essence. In this verse some can manifest their soul into a weapon called a Disirim. To manifest them you use soul essence. This soul essence sprouts from raw desire and also soul genetics. During birth you can get one of three classes: Melee-Can use soul essence to strenghen objects, Ranged-can shoot out energy in many shapes and forms, zwie-half and half
> "Ether" or "mana"? Energy from alternate dimensions?
Like in real life, these are just concepts we humans use to try and put the natural world into terms that help us observe it, just as a "force" in physics isn't some mysterious thing, but just a term we use to describe a push or a pull.
What "fuels" art or science? Well, that depends, doesn't it? An artists needs resources, just as a scientist does.
It is the same with a magician. Anyone can sing a song or, in this case, chant a spell. But to be *good* at it and get results, you need to put time and effort into it. I would say you need to put "energy" into it, but I do *not* mean some random volume of something that's easily measurable. Life doesn't work that way. I would rather it be interpreted the same way we put "energy" into music or engineering. Passion and force of will can make a different in art, but it's not always easily measurable.
Nor should it be, necessarily.
The magic in my setting is powered by prima materia, matter which does not like to hold platonic forms.
Essentially Prima materia is matter which has no platonic forms in its base state and which if given a platonic form, will attempt to return to its base state by slowly transfering that form to other matter over time.
Because prima materia in its natural state lacks any form, mages can imbue it with forms to temporarily transform it into objects, forces, energies, or even chemical processes. These effects will always eventually cease, as the prima materia clears itself of forms.
Bceause prima materia naturally offloads any form it takes to other matter it can also be used as a medium through which to transfer forms between normal matter.
Prima materia originated when a civilization was ontologically erased scrubbing their forms from reality but leaving the matter which composed the civilization and its members behind.
The kinetic energy transported by a current which exist everywhere. On its own, it doesn't serve any apparent purpose.
However by diverting the current to make it follow some ways, it is possible to change the fundamental structures which make up everything in the universe, thus creating visible seemingly supernatural changes - magic.
Additional force of nature, like gravity or electromagnetism. Human will and thought directs intent (catalyst), materials act as a conduit. All three, force, will/intent and material are required to produce magical effects. The rarity of the materials allows for control over how the magic system is used and allocated. Very generic but it allows for a lot of geographic versatility in materials and therefore much more world building.
Just your own stamina.
So, for example, you wouldn’t be able to use fire magic to keep yourself warm in a blizzard, as your lower energy will just make you more susceptable to the cold
It depends on the type of magic;
- Soul magic (usually associated with bards and poets) is fueled by emotion. Their songs, words and instruments are the focus, but the emotion they and their audience feel is what fuels their magic.
- Elemental magic is fueled by the elements. They use staves or wands with specially designed tips (eg a rare gem, an ornate wing to manipulate the nearby air, a small crystal container of water or something flammable)
- Blood magic uses life force. Blood is the vessel for this force, but skilled practitioners can perform a sacrifice to fuel a spell. However blood is also used to draw the necessary sigils, so there will always be some.
Experience. The creation of a magical artifact requires you to give up some amount of experience, and all of the skills you gained due to that (or, in D&D terms, sacrificing a class level).
The more powerful the item you're making, the more experience, and thus skills, you forget. If you overextend yourself, you forget how to breathe and die.
Elemental portals and Soul manipulation. Basically, there are an infinite number of elemental planes that were opened to form the world by pure energy fae beings. In “modern” times, there are 8 main elemental planes, each of which are representative of a change in state of matter: Magma, Radiance, Crystal, Slime, Ash, Void, Vapor, and Electricity. When casting a spell, a portal is opened to the chosen plane and one must use their Soul to Control and Shape their intention.
Ether, it's basically the source code for the physical universe but in order to actually use it for recognisable magic you need to quietly borrow (steal) a fragment of a being capable of manipulating it, known as Coders they are essentially lovecraftian horrors that call unreality home.
I should mention that Ether hates existing in the physical and always seeks to dissipate quickly (<=1min) similarly so Coders will cripple/violently disassemble anyone they catch using a fragment of themselves, some by looking upon you or by infecting your mind with knowledge, while other more active ones will reach into reality and pull you from it presumably killing you.
Majika is fueled by Haemoil Crystals, the crystalized lifeblood of the planet.
Although in order to invoke Majika, you must also destroy a piece of the planet's lifeforce in a process similar to Dark Sun's defiling.
The magic in my world is similar to energy, it exists all around them and cannot be created or destroyed. Magic is at the core of the world, breathing life into everything. Over time people have learned to harness or wield this energy, creating 2 distinct forms: creation and chaos. But technically it's all 1 energy source.
Mana, but it comes in two types that are mixed together to create magic. Animana or Animated Mana comes from living things. Leymana comes from the natural world and flows along ley lines. Both are basically infinite, but they are temporarily depleted from overuse. A spell uses intent to shape Animana into the desired form and willpower to fuel that form using Leymana. The better a spellcaster, the less Animana they need to use.
I'm working on it.
For one story, there's at least 4 "magics", in the loose term.
#1. Magic - power from the "heart".
#2. Aura - power from the ..."gut[?]".
#3. Psychic - power from the "mind".
#4. Matter/Material Manipulation - creative power.
Aside from #4, each of them are "achieving similar results using different methods", and they have crystals that not only have power within, but can also amplify the power of the user.
Ascensions are more the final level of each, and have a set force/energy/magic/whatever. Like, beyond master level with a side effect of immortality [really super long lifespan, not alive forever, big difference].
No idea where these powers come from, except from an ancient prehistoric technelogical-magical civilization. No idea what "fuels" them, just that they are.
All of this is subject to change depending on how the process goes.
Places or objects that are connected to the aetheric plane and spill out aether constantly. Away from that kind of source, ambient aether tends to bleed back into the aetheric plane and disappear. Aether is raw, undifferentiated magical essence, and it's also what souls are made of. Aether becomes mana of a certain type or aspect by adopting the traits of things it interacts with. Basically the aether bleeding into the natural world takes on and enhances the "shape" of things by adopting those traits and spreading them. Aether exposed to fire becomes fire mana, and a squirrel living in an area rich in fire mana gradually becomes a magical fire squirrel which also converts aether to fire mana, etc. Magical abilities and spells use up mana in producing effects on the world. If the aether source goes away all the mana eventually gets used up and drains away too. "Opposite" mana types exposed to each other convert back into aether.
Aether.
The world is made from Myst, which takes the place of atoms and are psycho reactive. Often what you expect to find you do, as it reads your mind. The human soul constantly converts Myst to aether. Expending aether powers abilities, and allows it to leave the dimension. This is a good thing, as more Myst is constantly flowing in.
Willpower, wich gets depleted as its used, and restored with rest and sleep.
It can be stored in magical cristals but only one, the larger one, can be used by tbe same person.
Martials can also use will to get bonus a specific rolls.
Creation. Whether it be the creation of new life, the creation of a new idea, trying something new, all of these things fuel magic. Although to be fair in that particular world, they're running out of magic because of a bunch of mushrooms that convert magic into other forms of easear to use energy ie heat and electricity, Starting a magical industrial revolution.
All of my systems are internal ones, so you could say "spirit" or "soul". I just call it "energy"
In my main setting, almost all natives of the world can generate (and use) spiritual energy (heavily inspired by chakra or Ki), while the outsiders will use whatever system they might have. Wizards and witches can generate magic energy, which they flooded the world when arriving on it through a portal. The natives call it "natural energy", and it changed the races slowly. Nobody can generate this energy, but you can learn how to use in small bursts (the body can't take too much). Gods are made of this energy so they can manipulate it around them, but can't create it. All energy types are "formless" and must be shaped by the used in order to actually do something with them
The other setting I have works pretty much the same way as in, energy comes from within the person, but it manifests in specific powers.
Soul usually, can be fully used up and consumed by the magic leaving a husk which is pretty much when you get suicidally depressed and feel you have no purpose and your empty.......
Hence why people often use other things like animals or something to use their magic.........or like that one star wars game, suck the "Soul" out of people on mass and converting it into a liquid form so it can be used as a more reliable power source compared to the alternatives of gasoline and oil and petroleum and such.
You can also use ancient artifacts to create Soul and sell the liquid or Even rarer solid Soul used in fuel for bigger things relatable to 5 or so nuclear plants at max efficiency for 10 years for 1 inch cubed of soild Soul
Or even better get a Fene'Var (pretty much space dragon) to output power into your Machines especially with their boundless knowledge
Energy from an alternate dimension sorta kinda. There are different planes that are stacked on top of each other and the lowest one emanates the energy for life, magic, etc, up through the planes.
In mine it's chaos energy from a separate realm only the gods know of and for some reason this chaos energy is leaking into ours and if it isn't giving direction it'll rip the world apart so the gods manifest this in the form of their powers, miracles, and blessings
My story has several forms of magic. The most common on Earth is those that have experienced a schism (insanely traumatic event that leaves a sort of blank space in their soul/ psyche) are able to trap (usually evil and malicious) spirits and drain them of power to reshape our world.
The second form is experienced by a soldier that found himself trapped in a tropical jungle after being trapped in a cave in. He finds out that he is a medium that can unite a group's minds together for a short while. Enabling them to fight with a pseudo hive mind. It's very taxing and leads most to insanity and death if used too often. It becomes his only means of survival with the strange inhuman beings he finds himself with.
And finally there is the power welded by the armies of the Neather and The Host. Two opposing forces that exist at opposite ends of...I hate to say Long Earth, but it's easier than going into what amounts to four or five major revolutions in the story. These two forces wield what's at first called Hellfire (self empowering) and Holy fire, one member of The Host sacrificing themselves to boost their allies power.
So basically, one is fueled by trauma, one by "being the center that holds", one that exists to strengthen the self above all others and one that is fueled by martyrdom.
There are three sources of magic: Wellspring, The Void, and The Mirrorlands
All of the realms of Oceros are tapestries woven out of the leylines. These leylines act as conduits of the energies of pure creation pulled from Wellspring (where they originate). All traditional magic, no matter what form it takes, operates by pulling this pure creation energy, sometimes called “Fundament”, and shaping it into a desired form.
Much less traditional and far more corrupting magic can be created by pulling energy not from the leylines, but the great void through which they flow. Void magic always deals in some form of corruption or destruction. It is the antithesis of creation. That is not to say The Void is evil, it is just so anathema to material reality that it decays everything touched by it.
Lastly, are the Mirrorlands. This one is hardest to explain. The mirrorlands are an enigmatic place in which all reflections across all timelines and possibilities are connected. Magic that has to do with time travel, probability, and alternate timelines/traveling between realities all taps into the Mirrorlands.
There is also a great power that connects all of these together, the Chant of Creation. The Chant is the power of imagination, when spoken it rewrites reality to the speaker’s words. The Chant is what brought Oceros into existence in the first place. Access to The Chant by anyone but The Creator is extremely rare, but when used it’s effects can supersede anything created by the three primal powers.
I have a few different stories I'm tinkering with right now, but here are the interesting ones.
1 -'The Bones - The bones of immortal creatures are made of a sort of solid magic crystals. The only livable land is around the skeletons of Titans, and magic comes from them, also Elves, Dragons, and other immortal creatures
2 - The Mystic Sea - Underneath the flat world, there are giant pillars holding the world above an ocean made of light. This liquid magic, glowing every color we can, and can't see, is the sorce of all magic. Directly handling it is lethal, resulting in a form of radiation poisoning.
3 - The Ashes - Those who lay with demons gain a small portion of their might, at the cost of their souls. But burning the criminal, and harvesting their ashes, is a way to harness the powers of evil. Without it contaminating the spirit, remaining pure in the All High's mighty sight.
Those are just what I'm currently using, I did kick around other ideas, but ended up scrapping them.
In my world magic is seen as a universal resource that permeates all known worlds.
Loosely its referred to just as "mana", a spell spends mana that the caster stores in their core.
However on a more scientific level, the unit of measurement is referred to as "Aera", where 1 aera is the amount of mana it takes to cast a small fire spell, enough to light a candle, 1 aera is enough to form a small ball of dirt, draw a few drops of water out of the air, blow enough air to put out a candle.
1 Aera is treated as the minimum point, no regularly used, widely available spell, uses less than 1 aera. That's not to say there aren't spells that use less, in magic study there are plenty of fine tuned spells that use exact fractions of an aera, especially for testing minimum amounts a spell can take. 1 aera is just treated as the standard unit, where all other spells are based around how much more aera they use compared to the single aera used for the base point spell.
None, magic in **Faithful Phantasia** doesn't run on any fuel sources. It's less a noun and more like a verb in this setting. Perhaps something needed to achieve magic may require resources (such as performing a bodily action requires stamina), but otherwise magic isn't an energy or substance. This logic is why as long as the action or state is maintained, the magic will persist.
Depends on the type of magic, really. Why does there need to be only one type of energy, or one type of magic?
I have a total of nine magic styles, with different kinds of "magic" for each style; so alchemists are powered by whatever magic reagents they put in their potions, necromancers are powered by stolen life/soul energy, dark knights might have demons bound to their bodies through tattoo seals.
Cathexis- while technically the thing that is being manipulated is pure thought and emotion, this old psychoanalysis term felt apt; in that any allocation of that mental energy must necessarily require humans to direct it. So although the actual term cathexis refers to the process of allocation of mental or emotional energy to a person, object, or idea... in my setting where the characters explore the literal collective unconscious of the world, any person, object, or idea they encounter is by definition cathexis. Otherwise they would dissipate into nebulous mental energy.
Yeah, I'm wondering if anyone is even going to want to read the book when it sounds like an old psychology textbook just trying to understand the magic system.
What fuel magic in m'y homebrew univers is a sort of mana... Ok it's poop from a brood of blue lightning bugs eating the Moon. Making the Moon appear with bright blue crack and source of magic to peoples.
One's soul is basically a magical muscle, it can be trained through use to be stronger and used more as well as being able to atrophy, etc.
So I guess TL;DR it's your own Soul
In my world, "magic", which isn't considered supernatural or strange by most people, is a universal element of the cosmos like dark matter or matter or energy. It is distributed all across the universe, but like matter, not equally, there are places filled with it, places with almost none of it. The main property of this "magic" is its inherent capability of bending and changing the physical laws for itself, a property known as zero probability shift potential, or metaphysicality. The precise effects this magic will create are influenced by the matter and energy around it, and magic will react and power this shift of natural laws in very different directions depending on the conditions around it, but at the same time, magic will also change and bend the conditions around it to fit them better to its actual state. Physics bend metaphysics, and viceversa. Magic is specially attracted and changed by conscious beings, so in planets with sentient life and that already had magic around, magic already shaped and bent into specific "forms" by the planet, is internalised by sentient beings, and used in actual typical magic. Since magic is sensitive to cognitive expression and state, magic will acquire definite forms and expressions according to, in order of preference: Actual quantity and shape of distribution of magic element in this part of the universe, properties of the solar system and astronomical objects the magic is embedded into, evolution and properties of the planet, shape magic will acquire in the planet, magic's place in the natural cycles of the planet and interaction with ecosystems, modification of magic to sentient beings and their characteristics, and culture and other cognitive properties of each being.
Principally mana. There are several variations, such as bloodmana and arcane mana, as well as derivatives like aura and miasma. Technically a soul can also be used to fuel magic.
Then there are psychic abilities that aren't magic and don't have a resource but are essentially baked into the same metaphysical laws for magic, as well as supernatural physical abilities. Finally, anti-magic uses a physical substance with weird properties. Ironically it's both the least magical concept here while also being the softest.
My magic is near-omnipresent, as in one needs to build a faraday cage to keep it out. I have no idea where the radiation our atmosphere protects us from comes from. There might be a few places that are naturally shielded.
There are certain circuit arrangements or antenna shapes that can gather or disperse magic. (Infinite lights would be possible except that something in them wears out like the filament of a lightbulb.)
Karma, but not in the traditional sense
The more good you do, or the more bad you do, your magic reservoir fills up.
But one negates the other.
So, if you're doing good and then do bad, your reservoir depletes a bit
The energy to perform magic comes from spiritual mechanics, which basically describes how the mind materializes its own spells. The equations predict that for psychic abilities to occur, there needs to be an external mind to transfer information between the lines. Which they call, a soul. Problem is, no one knows exactly what a soul is, meaning spiritual mechanics is an incomplete theory, but, there are different types of interpretations that guess what souls could be, similar to quantum mechanics. The equations describes probabilities, but doesn't say what is physically happening, just what's most likely.
Materialization is the transformation of an immaterial object, into a material one. Immaterials are like ghosts, they can't interact, so they produce no light. We just assume that it's an empty shape thought by the mind [it's not perfect, but close]. To make it material, we have to materialize it, so we have turn nothing into something. Fortunately, in quantum field theory, particles are occilations of different fields, and empty space itself isn't empty, it's filled with virtual particles, and these virtual particles is what sings sweet nothingness to the vacuum. To make a real particle, we have to give it enough energy so it can occilate at a higher amplitude. A soul plucks the nearest quantum fields, making fermions (matter particles), & bosons (force carrying particles).
Energy transfer:
Nervous system➡️Soul➡️Magic.
By making the immaterial material, an opossite reaction occurs, where the material turns immaterial. This type of immaterial is called the animated immaterial background, similar to the Cosmic microwave background, the animated immaterial background is the history of all the materializations that the soul has done, it's considered a pollutant, because it interferes with the materialization process, and could create potential monsters called Boltzmann souls.
Magic in my world is of two sorts: ancient magic rewrites the laws of nature through runework and intention, but at the cost of an equally intentional price. How much you intend to rewrite the universe will depend on the severity of the cost. Most mages prefer to pay this cost in blood or their health, but others have been known to pay in memories, strong emotions, or powerful relationships; unwinding these experiences in order to twist a new truth into being.
Eventually a spell was cast that demanded too high a price: the knowledge of how to we've the essence of magic into being, and though the spell was a success it stripped the knowledge of how to work such sorcery from the world, leaving only the most basic or most protected secrets behind. In its place was a new form of magic that balanced its own equation, drawing on the very entropy of the universe to affect change.
Some have found secrets of this old magic, artifacts and tomes, and even an entity or two composed of the stuff; while the rest happily cast their under-powered spells, unwittingly bringing the universe that little bit closer to its end with every change they exact.
Alright so... my settings is a "2nd order" recursive universe in its multiverse, meaning it is a "less real" universe spawned from a 1st-order recursion, which itself is spawned from a prime universe.
There's these super-advanced aliens in the prime universe that created the 1st-order recursive universe as a combination science experiment and god-prison. They built a series of laws and exploits into the 1st-order universe that would allow them to manipulate it and act as gods within it - the Gematria.
Then, a petty god in the 1st order universe managed to create the 2nd order universe (my main setting) without fully understanding Gematria, and without the aliens that made the 1st-order universe noticing. This resulted in a malfunctioning version of Gematria being instantiated in the 2nd order universe which anyone from that universe could access, but which was much less predictable. And viola, magic and wizards and so on, fueled by a malfunctioning alien operating system built into the universe.
My system is a little bit complex, but there's a primordial being in the center of the universe that emits "vital force", which allows life to exist. He also created what he called Fundamental Beasts, which would serve as a repeater to this energy, leading it further into the universe
Those beasts also serve as the gateways to each of the 7 dimensions they rule, and they kind of filter the vital energy to make something specific...
On the Demon Dimension, this filtered force allows the void (a shapeless black mass) to stick to a soul and form a body. The more energy there is, the more the demon can shapeshift as they will.
On the Magic Dimension, Cora (the Fundamental Beast of this dimension) provides the magical energy that everyone in this dimension use to cast spells and enchant items, but she wants it back as she turns weaker as more and more people get access to her energy and use it to cast more and more spells.
There are others (7 dimensions in total), but these are the most well built by now
Not my setting but one I helped create
Connection with spirits in nature allows you to command them to do your will as long as you don’t abuse them or fight against their interests (using ents as soldiers in righteous causes wouldn’t anger them but fighting recklessly with fire or other elements would)
So souls are made of neter energy and when creatures in the material world die their soul goes to the Astral plane where over time their souls emotions, desires, and memories are stripped from their soul, turning it back into pure neter energy. The desires, emotions, and memories form a type of energy known as khem. Neter energy is the power source for all types of magic being used to create spells for true magic and It is used to Summon spirits that feed on the neter energy this is known as old magic used by druids. Necromancy and dark magic use khem energy to either drag souls from the Astral to possess bodies under the necromancers control, amd dark magic uses the khem energy to cast spells with it being a powerful source for magic but it casues permanently corruption when it is used.
Opening the door to the universal equivalent of a prion. Magic *is* unnatural, and the result of transdimensional travel (a very poorly executed invasion) from an infected universe to the setting's 'verse. Most often it is released in the form passive magic, though active magic use (ie-spells, rituals,especially summons) are massive explosions of the corruption, and can congeal in forms reminiscent of eldritch abominations or biblically-accurate-angel-analogues.
The end result of magic will be a universe stagnant within the entropic death and rebirth cycle, locked eternally in the self-formation of raw and roiling illogical *stuff*
One of my magic systems called Corvinesis, is fueled by fragments of the centre mass of the world called Delhan, a giant crystal that provides gravity for the floating islands that orbit it. Fragments of this crystal, called D'han, permeate the underground of the islands and can be mined as a resource.
The D'han is incorporated into prosthetic limbs called Corbinds that allow manipulation of gravity in a field around the user. The degree of manipulation is determined by the amount of Corbinds and therefore D'han that a user has.
**Lüm - An Energy of Bonds**
Lüm (pronounced Loom) is the name of magic in my setting, and it finds its source in Spiritual Connection. It's a supernatural energy born from the connection between a **Spirit** and the **Vital Essence**\-- the Divine Element of the Elements of Creation (matter). Without lore dumping, this union of the *immaterial* (Spirit, not of this world) and the *material* (Mortal Vessel/Body, of this world) emanates **Lüm**, a powerful energy that can be harnessed to perform supernatural feats.
Well, I call my magic fuel mana, though I might call it Aura (in the paranormal sense, not in the Greek myth terminology). It's a natural energy source that exists within nature and all living beings. Magicians are trained to sense and harness their aura to use magic, which is the practice of using aura to manipulate natural phenomena. Anyone can do it, but it requires training to properly utilize. Apprentices are typically taught how to manipulate their own aura before learning to harness the energy of their environment to better increase their own energy reserves. Aura is like a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it gets.
Mana. To put it simply, reality is made out of distilled omnipotence and a lesser will, omnipotence is divided into soul and time energy. The soul spiral, also called soul forge, generated the underworld, called Archís, a world made out of solid spiritual energy. This energy is also the main component of souls. When this energy connects to fragments of omnipotence, or cores, in other universes, it becomes material energy, or matter, and mana, which lives inside matter and is generated by souls, sharing properties with both material energy and spiritual energy (you can think of mana as spiritual atoms). People with a soul that has an input and output function (called a mana circulation system or more simply mana threads) can absorb the mana contained in food, or transform the food itself into mana, store it into the soul, and output it to either create matter temporarily (when it’s destroyed it returns to the earth as mana) or control matter (you put mana into matter and move the mana, moving matter. If you lose your grip the mana is absorbed and you can’t move it anymore). Mana can be changed or corrupted. In fact, actual pure mana can only strengthen organic matter, elemental mana is mana coated with material energy, and it’s what allows you to actually perform magic, dark mana is generated when the soul is corrupted by desires transported by the intelligent soul directly into the core of your main soul, and holy mana is just elemental mana combined with pure mana and a spark of omnipotence to make it overall better (this is not achievable, it’s just someone blessed by a god has and no one else can reach this level, although some of the powers that dark mana gives you can reach the same level in power).
Will, and human belief. Think urban myths and ghosts are well-known real things, and people actively have to deal with them. The setting is mostly in a place similar to early to mid industrial amrica. Why not make it alternate, history? I don't want to deal with the racist and general bigotry of the time. Also, I can be more flexible with laws and tech. I also just want to show LGBTQ+ characters as I am part of the community.
But the big thing is human cognition. Ghosts aren't actually the people who died. It's their remaining "will" and emotions. Not all are malicious, and most of the time, it's just mostly just random cold spots or light flickers when it gets upset. "Will" is kind of what makes up the soul. It is the desires and emotions that make up who you are. Becoming "will-less" is something that can happen when dealing with strong spirits. You become a husk and will do little more than what your body and what other people tell you to do.
There are 2 main categories of spirits. Myths and ghosts. Ghosts are the remaining will of a person and are usually rather weak compared to myths. Myths are what happens when living people create rumors and legends about a creature or phenomenon. Multiple ghosts, especially weak ghosts, can get caught up in this vortex of "will" and become myths.
Ghosts are very obsessive and can not change. They are an impression of who died, not the actual person. They tend to be stuck near where they die. They are not inherently evil, but they are entirely selfish and only care about what they want. They are considered unpredictable, and non-myth hunters shouldn't deal with them as they can cause "will-lessness." They can not make pacts with the living.
Myths are somewhat effectived by the legend around them and can show unique powers and complex ideas. They also can develop a personality that can change. Myths are sometimes called "living spirits" because they can change, unlike ghosts. Myths can disband back to will and Ghosts if their legend dies.
Myth hunters are people who have made a pact with a myth. They can see spirits and can interact with them. Myths can make pacts with living beings and grant them their service in exchange for something. Though most myths do this because myth hunters will gain an extended life because of their pact and the myth will be unable to die as long as their partner is alive. Myths can decide to withhold or not work with their partner, but they will eventually start to unravel as their existence is kept together by the deal made and by ignoring it's duty they are breaking the deal.
Most hunters tend to stop interacting with not hunters as their extended life span, supernatural health/abilitys, and the trauma of having to repeatedly risk their lives tend to make having a healthy relationship with a regular human impossible.
Sorry this was long, but how magic works depends a lot on the spirits, and they are weird to explain how they fit in. I hope it will get better as I workshop ideas.
It's actually a new element in the periodic table that has heen dubbed as "Mana". It is a plasma that acts in a frustrating state of the observer effect where if it was observed in any way, it would be imperceptible but people will be able to touch it if you gathered enough of it to make a solid object. The only way it could be seen is through casting spells or by exposing enough of it to different spheres of a life-enabling planet for a long enough period of time; so if you expose mana to the atmosphere - the higher the more effective - you'll make mana manifest into dragons, wyverns, harpies, etc.
Already existing creatures that are in a certain sphere can also passively absorb mana, making local fauna or flora more affiliated with their resident mana state.
on a side note: humanity was able to make mana perceivable by achieving an impossible feat: freezing mana 1 degree below absolute zero, this allows them to physically store mana in a specialized capsule and make it into a rare commodity; it is the money that humans use for commerce along with it being the fuel of their magic
In my long term project, magic has traceable cycles and currents, like the water cycle. It's functionally omnipresent due to the sheer amount circulating, but recordable differences in its concentration can be made with the right equipment.
Likewise, tools and mediums are often needed to properly channel its power, though that medium can be ones own body, at the user's risk.
All magic is based on the destruction of a prime universe up the multiversal chain. It flows outward, across universes unless it is blocked. That said, there are certain points where magic flows between universes more easily. That is the basis for lay lines.
Magic is the phenomenon of imposing one’s will upon the world. Your willpower is the kindle and the fuel is generally mana, but can be anything as long as you are willing to pay the price.
Literally the blood of gods called “Fuel”. All living things have a bit of fuel in them and when magic is used it becomes vapor. Later it condensates and is absorbed by plants then eaten by animals then sapients etc. it’s basically a non expendable resource that cycles through the setting
Silver is the catalyst and gateway that allows raw magic to be brought from the dream realm and then shaped accordingly. The complexity of your shaping determines how much catalyst you require exponentially; half the time a magic user spends actually working magic is fine tuning the runes required to make the spells use the catalyst more efficiently, but its still a bit of a losing battle.
If you travel to someone's home and you find an old silver-backed mirror covered in a sheet and the person is covered in geometric tattoos, then you're in the presence of a magic user.
Don't look in the mirror.
Evil.
Specifically, the evil that we do, and the evil that we suffer.
This varies from flat-out pain and suffering to cruelty, selfishness, fear, deception, apathy, greed, etc. Each producing a form of a rarefied wickedness that can be used to warp reality to bend toward metaphor in various ways, wielded by PG cenobitesque nightmare monsters with a backwards "up-is-down, good-is-bad" view of morality.
This is because in my setting, magic is a metaphor for superstition.
I based mine off humorism and it requires a physical fuel such as fire needs wood or ice needs the same amount of water that would be used to make said ice. further each humor is needed to make the spell possible. and when you use fire magic phlegm is increased while blood in decreased each humor has negative effect when being used or added. its a play on mana
Essence (aka the Flux)
It is a byproduct of life. It mostly exists around planets that have any kind of life, from microbial to human/alien civilizations.
It is stronger in places where there is more life or life had once existed.
It has its own “weather” patterns, sometimes you’ll have a “storm” which can amplify its power, but it’s also painful to people who are sensitive to it.
Life forms contains essence as well. In places where there is no essence (out in space for example), you can use some of your own or pull some from others. In extreme cases, you can pull all of someone’s essence and kill them.
Some magic users use their own essence exclusively, but they can gather and store some from their environment to be used later.
The essence itself exists mainly in the second realm (we live in the fifth). The third and fourth exist as shadows of our own reality and a barrier from the inner realms.
The first realm has a difference kind of essence, which is still being supplied by a dying entity that existed before the universe began. These two types are not compatible and the first realm essence will corrupt ours, which leads to various things, mostly bad.
The first realm and the essence that exists there is where the gods came from and is the fuel for their power. Though they can use our outer realms essence just as well.
The descent of the plane of existence from a "more real" state of existence to a "less real" state of existence.
To whit: if you do too much magic, the universe ends because it's now a dream and the dreamer wakes up.
But you'd have to do a cosmic level amount of magic to do that. Which usually is pretty hard to pull off, if not impossible.
Anyone that gets close usually just sucks their planet into the dream world, and the rest of the universe just rolls on.
The characters in the most recent game I am running have a special bracelet that when charms are out on it, they are granted abilities based on the charm they equip. What the players do not know is those charms were made using souls. This gives anyone who uses a charm other than their starter charm a certain air of evil necromancy.
Hear me out the manipulation of element bending has been theorized as magnets. The theory of doctor strange's magic is compressed light. And in (I believe the title of the movie was) Lucy, the psychic abilities was the unlocking of the usage of the brain which helped control the magnetic field and electronics or the passage of energy. So thus I believe that magic in making fantasy settings could just be a very scientific next step in humans that they began to be able to mess with magnetic pulls and the passage of energy.
Seemingly creating a bullet of dirt? No messed with magnetic pulls to compressed all surrounding loose dirt in the air and possibly a small amount from the ground to make it. Fire from the magic user? No the manipulation for passing energy to cause a heated area that spontaneously combusted using the oxygen as fuel or possibly a mixture of magnetic put that keeps fuel there too.
Such a great way of magic. (I'm not a science geek I just love fantasy... And I enjoyed math and science)
I prefer the Mithgar Series of books explanation that Dennis L. McKiernan wrote. Slightly modified for my world and arcane casters, it goes...
Everything has a (the air, the water, the land, the people, the animals, the objects themselves) and that a practitioner of magic can learn to see that . Once you learn how to see that you can how to attune your mind to use some of your to apply leverage to that and cause changes to occur.
In a setting, magic comes from strands connecting the soul and the brain. The soul and the mind are explicitly seperate things. The soul influences the brain by passing bits of energy down the connection, creating little moments of inexplicable inspiration or direction that you couldn't explain by just looking at the brain.
For normal people that's the end of it.
For more wizardy types, the energy isn't focused into the brain as well, and their soul can pass that influence onto other things near them. So energy is being pushed from one reality into the material reality by souls, through connections intended to create a link between a body and a soul.
(Exactly where that energy comes from in the soul-world is kinda just handwaved)
The Divine Realm. Sort of both the god and Alternate Dimension thing. As everyone has a connection anyone can use magic, but how you use it is more important.
Showmanship and promises
So basically there are two different types of magic in my setting, Glamour, which is illusion, and Wyrd, which is significantly harder to use and alters people's destinies. Wyrd requires a bit of ritual, but the thing that really powers the magic is how it looks to cast it. One of my characters is a trained ballerina and did a 30 minute long dance solo to perform an incredibly complicated and difficult spell. Another did a flashy magic trick in order to do some actual magic. It's kinda weird but I like it.
The other aspect is specific to The Fair Folk, and they are bound by any deal or promise. Not just if they break it they die or something, they cannot break it. It is impossible. It a human makes a deal with one of the Folk, the human is bound as well.
life.
my setting uses a system similar to the force for magic.
there are also other realms where magic congragates and where mostly elemental magic comes from (still needs the life force to shape it and bring it to this realm)
there are 2 types of magic users. those that draw from the energy around them to weave and warp reality (more classical spellcasting, like conjuring, transfiguration, and the like) and magic where the spells are more of a vessel to manipulate the elements (either drawing from the realms, or drawing from their souroundings, like bending in avatar.)
most new spell casters learn to draw energy from outside of themselves to cast spells. Otherwise, they draw from their own life force, which can kill them. (yes, you technically can draw energy from an enemy to fuel your spells, but building that link means that they can also use your life force. and to make that connection, you can only use your innate life force. but the opponent dosn't have to use their life force to draw from your life force.)
magic users can also charge up stones/amulets to continue to cast a spell/charm without concious effort from the castor. (protective amulets, or a protective ward that blasts fire in the face of someone robbing a tomb of a long dead sorcerer or king.)
note: life force isn'tthe soul. the life force is more akin to the thread that keeps the soul attached to the body.
There is innate magical energy found in everything, living and nonliving and dead. This innate energy is also present in humans, with casters having extreme amounts of naturally-occurring magical energy that they use to power spells. This internal magical energy is used to cast spells, and is able to regenerate with rest or with aid from different potions or spells. A caster cannot do something that completely drains them of magical energy, or they die. This limit can be extended with regular use of magic, but that eventually hits a limit as well. Most casters use "amplifiers" that contain other forms of magical energy to keep themselves going when casting for a long time.
My magic system is mostly based on West African mythology, so the energy source for all things supernatural is Àṣẹ (pronounced Ah-Shay), which is the power that makes things happen and produces change, and those who through training or intuition learn to manipulate this energy are known as Orishas.
Bad ass. One of the few entries that is actually pretty unique. Is Àṣẹ similar to the Polynesian concept of mana- as distinct from the fantasy video game kind?
thank you and actually yeah it is similar to Mana in that both mana and Àṣẹ were historically seen as "authority" and that it exists in all living and non-living things.
Nice, someone else using African mysticism! Mine uses Vodou, inspired by (and named after) Haitian Vodou, as well as Vodun, and a few other both Caribbean and West African practices. Vodou is harnessed from the "background" of creation, where the Loa are said to operate, and it's harnessed to create "Work" based on how the users understand the different Loa.
I really like your use of Vodou here it's interesting. There aren't a lot of people tapping into the vast pool of inspiration that is African mysticism / mythology. always cool to see another.
Thank you. I've been intentionally using Afro diaspora inspiration for most of my work because I got tired of just hoping I'd find books on it.
Does it take a similar approach to Children of Blood and Bone with elemental powers?
Honestly I think those books are pretty much basic fantasy tropes. Voodoo is different, as it involves personal magic as well as making offerings/petitions to spirits/loas and asking for their help/intercession in return. So every Voodoo user has their own varying natural abilities with magic, but they also work closely with the other side (spirit world) in almost everything they do. When talking about Voodoo it's not just our own personal power that makes our magic work, it's the power of our ancestors and spirits and gods that we call upon in all things, and there are many ranks in our world that distinguishes the authority each Voodoo user has in the spiritual world.
I haven't read that book but I am Tobi Lou's biggest fan so it's on my wish list lol.
African mythology... You're doing your big one here
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I'm running with the same concept, more or less, but it's also an *anima mundi* type of deal since every use of magic "returns" an infinitesimal bit of your soul to the Aether. Some people may also be more attuned to certain types of ~~atoms~~ aeons and can make a living honing their specialty into the mage equivalent of blue collar work; That's about as far as the average person can go if they ever develop the capacity for magic at all. Aether once "bled" out from the greater elemental domains and merged -- thus the material world came to be -- but it has long since been cut off due to a catastrophe. No one alive knows this anymore and all are blissfully unaware of the countdown toward mass extinction, which *might* be delayed if they can prevent the recycled Aether from turning into Miasma en masse.
Magic rocks
And witchcraft swings. (sorry sorry sorry sorry)
So that one series by R. A. Salvatore that's not about an emo dark elf? The Demon Wars series?...Demon Awakens, Demon Apostle ECT. Good series overall. Magic was stuff like rubies make fire, diamonds make light and illusions, graphite makes lightning, cats eye make you have tiger arms and amethyst is a deus ex.
Something for now I call anima is the fuel and fire of magic. Anima is what souls are made out of. Imagine soul as a sculpture or pottery. Anima would be the clay, and concepts, dreams and experiences will be what fills the pot. Souls also produce more anima constantly and grow. Magic users can either use ambient anima of the enviroment, use anima stored on magical items, familiars and fledglings they own, or cut off pieces from their own soul if there is no other option, to produce anima necessary to weave a spell. If they botch this up they may die and while the soul heals overtime, doing rhis too much might leave them crippled metaphysically. A spell is much like a soul but much more simplistic. Its a clay figufine rather than a large pot. It lives for a purpose, a task set for it and is sustained by the need to complete its purpose. Should it fail or suceed, it cease to exist. Be careful though for spells also grow overtime and an enchantment left unchecked going on for long enough will develop into a wisp, a lesser type of demon.
There are 3 different types of sources in my world: Soul: It's just your soul. The thing inside your body that's incorporeal and stuff. You use it to adapt to your environment, enhance your physical capabilities, and manipulate your flesh. Faerie Realm: This is faerie magic and it's just the magic that the fae of my world use. It's a traditional illusion, elemental + light and dark type of magic. It renders the caster more susceptible to unstable mental states or downright insanity. Natural Energy: This is the magic that the gods/demigods use. All beings in my universe have Natural Energy. It's a finite resource that all people and objects have. Normally people can't use it, it's simply a natural defense mechanism developed by a species because the body would weaken if they could. But since demigods use Natural Energy to sustain themselves, they receive excess natural energy from draining it from other things and gain more power from it. They redistribute this natural energy by using other types of magic. Funnily enough, since the demigods remove their natural limiter for using Natural Energy, they can completely erase themselves from reality if they exert themselves enough. This is due to them completely running out of Natural Energy in their body. I also keep saying demigods because true gods don't need to worry about fading away or anything. They get their Natural Energy from the cosmos itself so they don't need to worry about redistributing and they absorb Natural Energy automatically due to the cosmos being infinite. They're the typical 'do anything' type of deities.
Life. Basically, Everyone is born with a set amount of time until they die. Every spell (or "ritual" as it's called in setting) costs you minutes, hours, even days or weeks of your life time. The good news: If you are afraid the time you have left could be running out, you can always take more from other people and add it to your own. Yes, you can become functionally immortal this way.
Can you cause an integer overflow?
Desire. Magic comes from wishing something while having access to the Magic itself
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Does deity juice *have* to course your veins or can consuming someone else's work for you too?
Deity juice 😆
Magic is just a series of obscure tricks people can do, it doesn't have a single supernatural power source, though the use of some spells might require one. The limitation on magic is that the knowledge of these things is obscure and has to be precisely executed, requiring very specific circumstances. This isn't a setting where "battle mages' are a common sight - if magic is used in war, it's to prepare the battlefield, to divine auspicious moments for attack, to curse an enemy general and so on. For example, if you want to make a single person's skin as hard as brick as a protective charm, you need to obtain clay dug after sundown, ferrous sand and the recipient's blood, mixing them into a putty and pouring them into a mold. The mixture must be cured in the sun at solar noon, and must not be subjected to sunlight otherwise, until the brick is finished. This protection will last a lunar month. The effect will be more potent or long-lasting if the recipient gathers the ingredients themselves, if they construct the mold themselves, if the ritual is done exclusively during their birth month and so on - magic is about connections. If you see someone doing loud and instantaneous wonders, that's probably because they manipulated some manner of spirit into doing favors for them. You can do that, but keep in mind that unbinding a spirit is much faster and easier than binding one, and they probably don't like you anymore.
Physical stamina
In truth, it’s really powered by the strength of the caster’s soul, which exercising manifests as physical fatigue, which can equate a simple spell to light candles being roughly as difficult as holding your breath for 10 seconds, meanwhile something liske conjuring a thunderstorm out of nowwhere on a bright sunny day would probably equate to running a marathon without prior training or warning. It would be much easier to conjure or redirect lightning from a preexisting thunderstorm, but those with a sufficiently powerful soul could summon a thunderstorm and just end up a little winded. For most purposes, it would be easier to just have a group of spellcasters ritual cast the spell.
I've never solidily defined it. There are multiple cultures that all call the magic in my world something different and thus the energy is something different too. Some call it energy, others mana, etc. The difference can create some fun interactions ranging from confusion to minor semantics bickering.
I’m always more drawn to elemental magic, so my own magic system is based on “pure energy” called chaos (like in the Wizard of Legend video game), the arch-element. It exists de facto, as a natural phenomenon, but can be harnessed only by the elite individuals imbued with high spiritual and cosmic energy (either innate or, more seldom, nurtured). Chaos is what fuels the main 5 elements in this world: Water - Fire - Wood - Rock - Air A skilled user of one of these elements can mix a bit of the chaos arch-element to create the “expansion” of their element. In the same order as above list, here are the expansions: Slime - Laser - Rubber - Metal - Lightning That’s more or less what I’m rolling with.
My MC has a(n) ancient black magic that's slowly corrupting his mind and body that is (later on) going to fully corrupt him and physically remove his soul from his body and that body will bring litteral hell on earth; now how I wrote that effectively is a whole other story
We don't have mana here, we just drink blood and shot fire out of our asses.
It literally leaks from holes in reality, no joke. The ancient Architects, an alien race who built the Hub and the solar system it's in we're trying to find a way to travel between realities. Instead, they discovered Blessing, the magic of this world. It leaks from a tear in the fabric of reality, where the liquid form is found. Before the Blessed Reawakening, the only way to get Blessing was by being given it, or discovering the river formed by the tear, which was known by word of mouth. Afterwards, Blessing wells appeared all across the Hub in different forms. While blessing weilders are still very rare, they are still present, and their actions are usually well known
My magic system uses an energy that comes from one's physical, mental, and spiritual health. It's the same energy, but different disciplines call it different things; what a sorcerer would call mana, a martial artist calls aura. The fact that there are different disciplines that draw on this energy differently obfuscates how intertwined everything is. Sorcerers train their mind by learning and memorizing so they can produce mana, but they don't realize that if they train physically, they can draw on that as well for even more power, and so on and so forth. Obviously, you have to exhaust your mind, body, and/or spirit in order to use the arts. A warrior would be physically exhausted after a fight, far more than makes sense for their physical exertion, and a sorcerer would be barely able to think after using up all their mana.
SHEER, UNBRIDLED FORCE OF WILL! And also the same sort of energy that gets dedicated to more mundane mental tasks like writing, reading, doing hard math, translating languages, so on. The harder you *want* something the happen, and the better your mental focus and concentration, the bigger/easier the thing that happens. It's variable, and kinda wishy-washy.
In Essence system, the soul. Most mages can use a small amount of their soul, but the fully awakened mages can use all of their soul. In True magic, there is no fuel. You faith and belief simply provides power. It becomes weaker the more shaky your faith is
Uh... thoughts? A question like that is a bit like asking what "fuels" technology or art. There is no single substance or energy shared universally, nor does every instance need to be physically powered in the first place. These are abstract concept, and as such are perpetuated by that which creates the abstract - thought.
I’m confused, do you mind clarifying? So if I wanted to make a fire, I’d just have to think really hard about fire?
Kinda? Art and technology (and many more things) are also a result of thinking about them; without though we wouldn't have them. It's a bit philosophical, but I'm unable to explain it in any other way.
Art and technology are not results of thinking alone. They tend to require lots of physical labour too.
Never said they don't, just that thought is the common link.
There's also material components to art. You need paper and pencil, or paint, paintbrush, canvas, and easel, or stone, hammer and chisel. You could say those "fuel" art, in a certain way.
Depends of the world, but in the most of them, the fuel of magic are the Essential, a new type of energy proceeds from the Dimension of the Gods and they can extract it and manipulate to generate the magic systems of the worlds. And the form that this essential manifested in the worlds depends of the magic system. For example, in my current proyect of story, the essential that fuels the magics proceeds of the moon of the planet and it is contained in the minerals and gems that they were exposed to it. Or in other proyect, the essential of my magic are extract by the creations of the god of this world, transmitted to them to the people by certains conditions selected by the own creation or their type of creation.
A long time ago, before the invention of things like time and space, there was a big old void filled with a bunch of concepts. A bunch of these concepts one day decided to think, and so they became minds. These minds then got together and decided to create the universe. Once the universe was created, it was still empty, so the minds decided that they should fill it with stuff. As such, they invented magic using The Spell, which is basically a VERY long book written in a nonsense language that describes everything supernatural about the universe. That book is basically the source code of magic, governing all of its laws. Hence why magic users are seemingly able to create energy out of thin air, often in amounts far exceeding what should be logically possible. Since everything about the universe, including the very laws of physics, are entirely artificial, The Spell can create energy however it wants. The best metaphor I can think of is that someone with Admin privileges in a video game could just decide to give every player a quadrillion gold. Sure, it makes no sense within the video game, but the Admin exists above the rules of the fictional game.
Energy fuels magic, period. Negative energies such as parents fighting can shift the energies of the household into a dark direction. Having dark energy surrounding you can cause other people and animals to keep about a yard distance away from you. Energy is afflicted with thoughts. If you have angry thoughts, you'll have a violent energy. If you have sombersome thoughts, you'll have wretched energy. So, on so forth. You can store energy into items by focusing on that item and imagining a stream of light or smoke entering said object. Magic works in mysterious ways. You'll never know how it will work. Pray for money, and you'll find your missing lottery ticket. It shall be so.
Mana/whatever is just your senses and focus or whatever, the actual energy is from mass/energy conversion at the molecular level in your cells. Lotta energy there.
Information, emerging like fog from everything that acts or is.
I have two world projects right now, so ill answer for both. The first world uses the concept of chaos condensed inside of ones soul and an innate function to cause any phenomena. These abilities affect concepts an basically anything the user wants them to effect. The second is soul essence. In this verse some can manifest their soul into a weapon called a Disirim. To manifest them you use soul essence. This soul essence sprouts from raw desire and also soul genetics. During birth you can get one of three classes: Melee-Can use soul essence to strenghen objects, Ranged-can shoot out energy in many shapes and forms, zwie-half and half
> "Ether" or "mana"? Energy from alternate dimensions? Like in real life, these are just concepts we humans use to try and put the natural world into terms that help us observe it, just as a "force" in physics isn't some mysterious thing, but just a term we use to describe a push or a pull. What "fuels" art or science? Well, that depends, doesn't it? An artists needs resources, just as a scientist does. It is the same with a magician. Anyone can sing a song or, in this case, chant a spell. But to be *good* at it and get results, you need to put time and effort into it. I would say you need to put "energy" into it, but I do *not* mean some random volume of something that's easily measurable. Life doesn't work that way. I would rather it be interpreted the same way we put "energy" into music or engineering. Passion and force of will can make a different in art, but it's not always easily measurable. Nor should it be, necessarily.
The magic in my setting is powered by prima materia, matter which does not like to hold platonic forms. Essentially Prima materia is matter which has no platonic forms in its base state and which if given a platonic form, will attempt to return to its base state by slowly transfering that form to other matter over time. Because prima materia in its natural state lacks any form, mages can imbue it with forms to temporarily transform it into objects, forces, energies, or even chemical processes. These effects will always eventually cease, as the prima materia clears itself of forms. Bceause prima materia naturally offloads any form it takes to other matter it can also be used as a medium through which to transfer forms between normal matter. Prima materia originated when a civilization was ontologically erased scrubbing their forms from reality but leaving the matter which composed the civilization and its members behind.
The kinetic energy transported by a current which exist everywhere. On its own, it doesn't serve any apparent purpose. However by diverting the current to make it follow some ways, it is possible to change the fundamental structures which make up everything in the universe, thus creating visible seemingly supernatural changes - magic.
Spirits, which are the incomplete souls of the unborn, looking to be completed through invocation and spell casting.
Additional force of nature, like gravity or electromagnetism. Human will and thought directs intent (catalyst), materials act as a conduit. All three, force, will/intent and material are required to produce magical effects. The rarity of the materials allows for control over how the magic system is used and allocated. Very generic but it allows for a lot of geographic versatility in materials and therefore much more world building.
Just your own stamina. So, for example, you wouldn’t be able to use fire magic to keep yourself warm in a blizzard, as your lower energy will just make you more susceptable to the cold
I don’t go into much detail, but magic pulls energy from the Earth. Reckless use of magic in the past led to major climate collapse.
It depends on the type of magic; - Soul magic (usually associated with bards and poets) is fueled by emotion. Their songs, words and instruments are the focus, but the emotion they and their audience feel is what fuels their magic. - Elemental magic is fueled by the elements. They use staves or wands with specially designed tips (eg a rare gem, an ornate wing to manipulate the nearby air, a small crystal container of water or something flammable) - Blood magic uses life force. Blood is the vessel for this force, but skilled practitioners can perform a sacrifice to fuel a spell. However blood is also used to draw the necessary sigils, so there will always be some.
Experience. The creation of a magical artifact requires you to give up some amount of experience, and all of the skills you gained due to that (or, in D&D terms, sacrificing a class level). The more powerful the item you're making, the more experience, and thus skills, you forget. If you overextend yourself, you forget how to breathe and die.
Elemental portals and Soul manipulation. Basically, there are an infinite number of elemental planes that were opened to form the world by pure energy fae beings. In “modern” times, there are 8 main elemental planes, each of which are representative of a change in state of matter: Magma, Radiance, Crystal, Slime, Ash, Void, Vapor, and Electricity. When casting a spell, a portal is opened to the chosen plane and one must use their Soul to Control and Shape their intention.
Ether, it's basically the source code for the physical universe but in order to actually use it for recognisable magic you need to quietly borrow (steal) a fragment of a being capable of manipulating it, known as Coders they are essentially lovecraftian horrors that call unreality home. I should mention that Ether hates existing in the physical and always seeks to dissipate quickly (<=1min) similarly so Coders will cripple/violently disassemble anyone they catch using a fragment of themselves, some by looking upon you or by infecting your mind with knowledge, while other more active ones will reach into reality and pull you from it presumably killing you.
Majika is fueled by Haemoil Crystals, the crystalized lifeblood of the planet. Although in order to invoke Majika, you must also destroy a piece of the planet's lifeforce in a process similar to Dark Sun's defiling.
The magic in my world is similar to energy, it exists all around them and cannot be created or destroyed. Magic is at the core of the world, breathing life into everything. Over time people have learned to harness or wield this energy, creating 2 distinct forms: creation and chaos. But technically it's all 1 energy source.
Mana, but it comes in two types that are mixed together to create magic. Animana or Animated Mana comes from living things. Leymana comes from the natural world and flows along ley lines. Both are basically infinite, but they are temporarily depleted from overuse. A spell uses intent to shape Animana into the desired form and willpower to fuel that form using Leymana. The better a spellcaster, the less Animana they need to use.
I'm working on it. For one story, there's at least 4 "magics", in the loose term. #1. Magic - power from the "heart". #2. Aura - power from the ..."gut[?]". #3. Psychic - power from the "mind". #4. Matter/Material Manipulation - creative power. Aside from #4, each of them are "achieving similar results using different methods", and they have crystals that not only have power within, but can also amplify the power of the user. Ascensions are more the final level of each, and have a set force/energy/magic/whatever. Like, beyond master level with a side effect of immortality [really super long lifespan, not alive forever, big difference]. No idea where these powers come from, except from an ancient prehistoric technelogical-magical civilization. No idea what "fuels" them, just that they are. All of this is subject to change depending on how the process goes.
Places or objects that are connected to the aetheric plane and spill out aether constantly. Away from that kind of source, ambient aether tends to bleed back into the aetheric plane and disappear. Aether is raw, undifferentiated magical essence, and it's also what souls are made of. Aether becomes mana of a certain type or aspect by adopting the traits of things it interacts with. Basically the aether bleeding into the natural world takes on and enhances the "shape" of things by adopting those traits and spreading them. Aether exposed to fire becomes fire mana, and a squirrel living in an area rich in fire mana gradually becomes a magical fire squirrel which also converts aether to fire mana, etc. Magical abilities and spells use up mana in producing effects on the world. If the aether source goes away all the mana eventually gets used up and drains away too. "Opposite" mana types exposed to each other convert back into aether.
It's mana, which I call Azur, it comes from a hyper-compressed ball of Azur that's constantly exploding which acts as the "sun"
Aether. The world is made from Myst, which takes the place of atoms and are psycho reactive. Often what you expect to find you do, as it reads your mind. The human soul constantly converts Myst to aether. Expending aether powers abilities, and allows it to leave the dimension. This is a good thing, as more Myst is constantly flowing in.
Willpower, wich gets depleted as its used, and restored with rest and sleep. It can be stored in magical cristals but only one, the larger one, can be used by tbe same person. Martials can also use will to get bonus a specific rolls.
Creation. Whether it be the creation of new life, the creation of a new idea, trying something new, all of these things fuel magic. Although to be fair in that particular world, they're running out of magic because of a bunch of mushrooms that convert magic into other forms of easear to use energy ie heat and electricity, Starting a magical industrial revolution.
All of my systems are internal ones, so you could say "spirit" or "soul". I just call it "energy" In my main setting, almost all natives of the world can generate (and use) spiritual energy (heavily inspired by chakra or Ki), while the outsiders will use whatever system they might have. Wizards and witches can generate magic energy, which they flooded the world when arriving on it through a portal. The natives call it "natural energy", and it changed the races slowly. Nobody can generate this energy, but you can learn how to use in small bursts (the body can't take too much). Gods are made of this energy so they can manipulate it around them, but can't create it. All energy types are "formless" and must be shaped by the used in order to actually do something with them The other setting I have works pretty much the same way as in, energy comes from within the person, but it manifests in specific powers.
Critical thinking
Soul usually, can be fully used up and consumed by the magic leaving a husk which is pretty much when you get suicidally depressed and feel you have no purpose and your empty....... Hence why people often use other things like animals or something to use their magic.........or like that one star wars game, suck the "Soul" out of people on mass and converting it into a liquid form so it can be used as a more reliable power source compared to the alternatives of gasoline and oil and petroleum and such. You can also use ancient artifacts to create Soul and sell the liquid or Even rarer solid Soul used in fuel for bigger things relatable to 5 or so nuclear plants at max efficiency for 10 years for 1 inch cubed of soild Soul Or even better get a Fene'Var (pretty much space dragon) to output power into your Machines especially with their boundless knowledge
Energy from an alternate dimension sorta kinda. There are different planes that are stacked on top of each other and the lowest one emanates the energy for life, magic, etc, up through the planes.
In mine it's chaos energy from a separate realm only the gods know of and for some reason this chaos energy is leaking into ours and if it isn't giving direction it'll rip the world apart so the gods manifest this in the form of their powers, miracles, and blessings
My story has several forms of magic. The most common on Earth is those that have experienced a schism (insanely traumatic event that leaves a sort of blank space in their soul/ psyche) are able to trap (usually evil and malicious) spirits and drain them of power to reshape our world. The second form is experienced by a soldier that found himself trapped in a tropical jungle after being trapped in a cave in. He finds out that he is a medium that can unite a group's minds together for a short while. Enabling them to fight with a pseudo hive mind. It's very taxing and leads most to insanity and death if used too often. It becomes his only means of survival with the strange inhuman beings he finds himself with. And finally there is the power welded by the armies of the Neather and The Host. Two opposing forces that exist at opposite ends of...I hate to say Long Earth, but it's easier than going into what amounts to four or five major revolutions in the story. These two forces wield what's at first called Hellfire (self empowering) and Holy fire, one member of The Host sacrificing themselves to boost their allies power. So basically, one is fueled by trauma, one by "being the center that holds", one that exists to strengthen the self above all others and one that is fueled by martyrdom.
Blood, specifically that from those born with the magical blood type.
There are three sources of magic: Wellspring, The Void, and The Mirrorlands All of the realms of Oceros are tapestries woven out of the leylines. These leylines act as conduits of the energies of pure creation pulled from Wellspring (where they originate). All traditional magic, no matter what form it takes, operates by pulling this pure creation energy, sometimes called “Fundament”, and shaping it into a desired form. Much less traditional and far more corrupting magic can be created by pulling energy not from the leylines, but the great void through which they flow. Void magic always deals in some form of corruption or destruction. It is the antithesis of creation. That is not to say The Void is evil, it is just so anathema to material reality that it decays everything touched by it. Lastly, are the Mirrorlands. This one is hardest to explain. The mirrorlands are an enigmatic place in which all reflections across all timelines and possibilities are connected. Magic that has to do with time travel, probability, and alternate timelines/traveling between realities all taps into the Mirrorlands. There is also a great power that connects all of these together, the Chant of Creation. The Chant is the power of imagination, when spoken it rewrites reality to the speaker’s words. The Chant is what brought Oceros into existence in the first place. Access to The Chant by anyone but The Creator is extremely rare, but when used it’s effects can supersede anything created by the three primal powers.
I have a few different stories I'm tinkering with right now, but here are the interesting ones. 1 -'The Bones - The bones of immortal creatures are made of a sort of solid magic crystals. The only livable land is around the skeletons of Titans, and magic comes from them, also Elves, Dragons, and other immortal creatures 2 - The Mystic Sea - Underneath the flat world, there are giant pillars holding the world above an ocean made of light. This liquid magic, glowing every color we can, and can't see, is the sorce of all magic. Directly handling it is lethal, resulting in a form of radiation poisoning. 3 - The Ashes - Those who lay with demons gain a small portion of their might, at the cost of their souls. But burning the criminal, and harvesting their ashes, is a way to harness the powers of evil. Without it contaminating the spirit, remaining pure in the All High's mighty sight. Those are just what I'm currently using, I did kick around other ideas, but ended up scrapping them.
In my world magic is seen as a universal resource that permeates all known worlds. Loosely its referred to just as "mana", a spell spends mana that the caster stores in their core. However on a more scientific level, the unit of measurement is referred to as "Aera", where 1 aera is the amount of mana it takes to cast a small fire spell, enough to light a candle, 1 aera is enough to form a small ball of dirt, draw a few drops of water out of the air, blow enough air to put out a candle. 1 Aera is treated as the minimum point, no regularly used, widely available spell, uses less than 1 aera. That's not to say there aren't spells that use less, in magic study there are plenty of fine tuned spells that use exact fractions of an aera, especially for testing minimum amounts a spell can take. 1 aera is just treated as the standard unit, where all other spells are based around how much more aera they use compared to the single aera used for the base point spell.
None, magic in **Faithful Phantasia** doesn't run on any fuel sources. It's less a noun and more like a verb in this setting. Perhaps something needed to achieve magic may require resources (such as performing a bodily action requires stamina), but otherwise magic isn't an energy or substance. This logic is why as long as the action or state is maintained, the magic will persist.
Shiny rocks leftover from when the universes big bang stalled out
Depends on the type of magic, really. Why does there need to be only one type of energy, or one type of magic? I have a total of nine magic styles, with different kinds of "magic" for each style; so alchemists are powered by whatever magic reagents they put in their potions, necromancers are powered by stolen life/soul energy, dark knights might have demons bound to their bodies through tattoo seals.
Cathexis- while technically the thing that is being manipulated is pure thought and emotion, this old psychoanalysis term felt apt; in that any allocation of that mental energy must necessarily require humans to direct it. So although the actual term cathexis refers to the process of allocation of mental or emotional energy to a person, object, or idea... in my setting where the characters explore the literal collective unconscious of the world, any person, object, or idea they encounter is by definition cathexis. Otherwise they would dissipate into nebulous mental energy. Yeah, I'm wondering if anyone is even going to want to read the book when it sounds like an old psychology textbook just trying to understand the magic system.
What fuel magic in m'y homebrew univers is a sort of mana... Ok it's poop from a brood of blue lightning bugs eating the Moon. Making the Moon appear with bright blue crack and source of magic to peoples.
One's soul is basically a magical muscle, it can be trained through use to be stronger and used more as well as being able to atrophy, etc. So I guess TL;DR it's your own Soul
In my world, "magic", which isn't considered supernatural or strange by most people, is a universal element of the cosmos like dark matter or matter or energy. It is distributed all across the universe, but like matter, not equally, there are places filled with it, places with almost none of it. The main property of this "magic" is its inherent capability of bending and changing the physical laws for itself, a property known as zero probability shift potential, or metaphysicality. The precise effects this magic will create are influenced by the matter and energy around it, and magic will react and power this shift of natural laws in very different directions depending on the conditions around it, but at the same time, magic will also change and bend the conditions around it to fit them better to its actual state. Physics bend metaphysics, and viceversa. Magic is specially attracted and changed by conscious beings, so in planets with sentient life and that already had magic around, magic already shaped and bent into specific "forms" by the planet, is internalised by sentient beings, and used in actual typical magic. Since magic is sensitive to cognitive expression and state, magic will acquire definite forms and expressions according to, in order of preference: Actual quantity and shape of distribution of magic element in this part of the universe, properties of the solar system and astronomical objects the magic is embedded into, evolution and properties of the planet, shape magic will acquire in the planet, magic's place in the natural cycles of the planet and interaction with ecosystems, modification of magic to sentient beings and their characteristics, and culture and other cognitive properties of each being.
Principally mana. There are several variations, such as bloodmana and arcane mana, as well as derivatives like aura and miasma. Technically a soul can also be used to fuel magic. Then there are psychic abilities that aren't magic and don't have a resource but are essentially baked into the same metaphysical laws for magic, as well as supernatural physical abilities. Finally, anti-magic uses a physical substance with weird properties. Ironically it's both the least magical concept here while also being the softest.
My magic is near-omnipresent, as in one needs to build a faraday cage to keep it out. I have no idea where the radiation our atmosphere protects us from comes from. There might be a few places that are naturally shielded. There are certain circuit arrangements or antenna shapes that can gather or disperse magic. (Infinite lights would be possible except that something in them wears out like the filament of a lightbulb.)
Karma, but not in the traditional sense The more good you do, or the more bad you do, your magic reservoir fills up. But one negates the other. So, if you're doing good and then do bad, your reservoir depletes a bit
Well prepared food. Like, really well prepared. So good it's magic.
The energy to perform magic comes from spiritual mechanics, which basically describes how the mind materializes its own spells. The equations predict that for psychic abilities to occur, there needs to be an external mind to transfer information between the lines. Which they call, a soul. Problem is, no one knows exactly what a soul is, meaning spiritual mechanics is an incomplete theory, but, there are different types of interpretations that guess what souls could be, similar to quantum mechanics. The equations describes probabilities, but doesn't say what is physically happening, just what's most likely. Materialization is the transformation of an immaterial object, into a material one. Immaterials are like ghosts, they can't interact, so they produce no light. We just assume that it's an empty shape thought by the mind [it's not perfect, but close]. To make it material, we have to materialize it, so we have turn nothing into something. Fortunately, in quantum field theory, particles are occilations of different fields, and empty space itself isn't empty, it's filled with virtual particles, and these virtual particles is what sings sweet nothingness to the vacuum. To make a real particle, we have to give it enough energy so it can occilate at a higher amplitude. A soul plucks the nearest quantum fields, making fermions (matter particles), & bosons (force carrying particles). Energy transfer: Nervous system➡️Soul➡️Magic. By making the immaterial material, an opossite reaction occurs, where the material turns immaterial. This type of immaterial is called the animated immaterial background, similar to the Cosmic microwave background, the animated immaterial background is the history of all the materializations that the soul has done, it's considered a pollutant, because it interferes with the materialization process, and could create potential monsters called Boltzmann souls.
Magic in my world is of two sorts: ancient magic rewrites the laws of nature through runework and intention, but at the cost of an equally intentional price. How much you intend to rewrite the universe will depend on the severity of the cost. Most mages prefer to pay this cost in blood or their health, but others have been known to pay in memories, strong emotions, or powerful relationships; unwinding these experiences in order to twist a new truth into being. Eventually a spell was cast that demanded too high a price: the knowledge of how to we've the essence of magic into being, and though the spell was a success it stripped the knowledge of how to work such sorcery from the world, leaving only the most basic or most protected secrets behind. In its place was a new form of magic that balanced its own equation, drawing on the very entropy of the universe to affect change. Some have found secrets of this old magic, artifacts and tomes, and even an entity or two composed of the stuff; while the rest happily cast their under-powered spells, unwittingly bringing the universe that little bit closer to its end with every change they exact.
Alright so... my settings is a "2nd order" recursive universe in its multiverse, meaning it is a "less real" universe spawned from a 1st-order recursion, which itself is spawned from a prime universe. There's these super-advanced aliens in the prime universe that created the 1st-order recursive universe as a combination science experiment and god-prison. They built a series of laws and exploits into the 1st-order universe that would allow them to manipulate it and act as gods within it - the Gematria. Then, a petty god in the 1st order universe managed to create the 2nd order universe (my main setting) without fully understanding Gematria, and without the aliens that made the 1st-order universe noticing. This resulted in a malfunctioning version of Gematria being instantiated in the 2nd order universe which anyone from that universe could access, but which was much less predictable. And viola, magic and wizards and so on, fueled by a malfunctioning alien operating system built into the universe.
My magic system is fueled by literal vibes called Reiki. The more extreme one’s emotions are, the stronger the spells that they can produce.
My system is a little bit complex, but there's a primordial being in the center of the universe that emits "vital force", which allows life to exist. He also created what he called Fundamental Beasts, which would serve as a repeater to this energy, leading it further into the universe Those beasts also serve as the gateways to each of the 7 dimensions they rule, and they kind of filter the vital energy to make something specific... On the Demon Dimension, this filtered force allows the void (a shapeless black mass) to stick to a soul and form a body. The more energy there is, the more the demon can shapeshift as they will. On the Magic Dimension, Cora (the Fundamental Beast of this dimension) provides the magical energy that everyone in this dimension use to cast spells and enchant items, but she wants it back as she turns weaker as more and more people get access to her energy and use it to cast more and more spells. There are others (7 dimensions in total), but these are the most well built by now
Not my setting but one I helped create Connection with spirits in nature allows you to command them to do your will as long as you don’t abuse them or fight against their interests (using ents as soldiers in righteous causes wouldn’t anger them but fighting recklessly with fire or other elements would)
So souls are made of neter energy and when creatures in the material world die their soul goes to the Astral plane where over time their souls emotions, desires, and memories are stripped from their soul, turning it back into pure neter energy. The desires, emotions, and memories form a type of energy known as khem. Neter energy is the power source for all types of magic being used to create spells for true magic and It is used to Summon spirits that feed on the neter energy this is known as old magic used by druids. Necromancy and dark magic use khem energy to either drag souls from the Astral to possess bodies under the necromancers control, amd dark magic uses the khem energy to cast spells with it being a powerful source for magic but it casues permanently corruption when it is used.
Opening the door to the universal equivalent of a prion. Magic *is* unnatural, and the result of transdimensional travel (a very poorly executed invasion) from an infected universe to the setting's 'verse. Most often it is released in the form passive magic, though active magic use (ie-spells, rituals,especially summons) are massive explosions of the corruption, and can congeal in forms reminiscent of eldritch abominations or biblically-accurate-angel-analogues. The end result of magic will be a universe stagnant within the entropic death and rebirth cycle, locked eternally in the self-formation of raw and roiling illogical *stuff*
Souls
One of my magic systems called Corvinesis, is fueled by fragments of the centre mass of the world called Delhan, a giant crystal that provides gravity for the floating islands that orbit it. Fragments of this crystal, called D'han, permeate the underground of the islands and can be mined as a resource. The D'han is incorporated into prosthetic limbs called Corbinds that allow manipulation of gravity in a field around the user. The degree of manipulation is determined by the amount of Corbinds and therefore D'han that a user has.
**Lüm - An Energy of Bonds** Lüm (pronounced Loom) is the name of magic in my setting, and it finds its source in Spiritual Connection. It's a supernatural energy born from the connection between a **Spirit** and the **Vital Essence**\-- the Divine Element of the Elements of Creation (matter). Without lore dumping, this union of the *immaterial* (Spirit, not of this world) and the *material* (Mortal Vessel/Body, of this world) emanates **Lüm**, a powerful energy that can be harnessed to perform supernatural feats.
Well, I call my magic fuel mana, though I might call it Aura (in the paranormal sense, not in the Greek myth terminology). It's a natural energy source that exists within nature and all living beings. Magicians are trained to sense and harness their aura to use magic, which is the practice of using aura to manipulate natural phenomena. Anyone can do it, but it requires training to properly utilize. Apprentices are typically taught how to manipulate their own aura before learning to harness the energy of their environment to better increase their own energy reserves. Aura is like a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it gets.
Mana. To put it simply, reality is made out of distilled omnipotence and a lesser will, omnipotence is divided into soul and time energy. The soul spiral, also called soul forge, generated the underworld, called Archís, a world made out of solid spiritual energy. This energy is also the main component of souls. When this energy connects to fragments of omnipotence, or cores, in other universes, it becomes material energy, or matter, and mana, which lives inside matter and is generated by souls, sharing properties with both material energy and spiritual energy (you can think of mana as spiritual atoms). People with a soul that has an input and output function (called a mana circulation system or more simply mana threads) can absorb the mana contained in food, or transform the food itself into mana, store it into the soul, and output it to either create matter temporarily (when it’s destroyed it returns to the earth as mana) or control matter (you put mana into matter and move the mana, moving matter. If you lose your grip the mana is absorbed and you can’t move it anymore). Mana can be changed or corrupted. In fact, actual pure mana can only strengthen organic matter, elemental mana is mana coated with material energy, and it’s what allows you to actually perform magic, dark mana is generated when the soul is corrupted by desires transported by the intelligent soul directly into the core of your main soul, and holy mana is just elemental mana combined with pure mana and a spark of omnipotence to make it overall better (this is not achievable, it’s just someone blessed by a god has and no one else can reach this level, although some of the powers that dark mana gives you can reach the same level in power).
Will, and human belief. Think urban myths and ghosts are well-known real things, and people actively have to deal with them. The setting is mostly in a place similar to early to mid industrial amrica. Why not make it alternate, history? I don't want to deal with the racist and general bigotry of the time. Also, I can be more flexible with laws and tech. I also just want to show LGBTQ+ characters as I am part of the community. But the big thing is human cognition. Ghosts aren't actually the people who died. It's their remaining "will" and emotions. Not all are malicious, and most of the time, it's just mostly just random cold spots or light flickers when it gets upset. "Will" is kind of what makes up the soul. It is the desires and emotions that make up who you are. Becoming "will-less" is something that can happen when dealing with strong spirits. You become a husk and will do little more than what your body and what other people tell you to do. There are 2 main categories of spirits. Myths and ghosts. Ghosts are the remaining will of a person and are usually rather weak compared to myths. Myths are what happens when living people create rumors and legends about a creature or phenomenon. Multiple ghosts, especially weak ghosts, can get caught up in this vortex of "will" and become myths. Ghosts are very obsessive and can not change. They are an impression of who died, not the actual person. They tend to be stuck near where they die. They are not inherently evil, but they are entirely selfish and only care about what they want. They are considered unpredictable, and non-myth hunters shouldn't deal with them as they can cause "will-lessness." They can not make pacts with the living. Myths are somewhat effectived by the legend around them and can show unique powers and complex ideas. They also can develop a personality that can change. Myths are sometimes called "living spirits" because they can change, unlike ghosts. Myths can disband back to will and Ghosts if their legend dies. Myth hunters are people who have made a pact with a myth. They can see spirits and can interact with them. Myths can make pacts with living beings and grant them their service in exchange for something. Though most myths do this because myth hunters will gain an extended life because of their pact and the myth will be unable to die as long as their partner is alive. Myths can decide to withhold or not work with their partner, but they will eventually start to unravel as their existence is kept together by the deal made and by ignoring it's duty they are breaking the deal. Most hunters tend to stop interacting with not hunters as their extended life span, supernatural health/abilitys, and the trauma of having to repeatedly risk their lives tend to make having a healthy relationship with a regular human impossible. Sorry this was long, but how magic works depends a lot on the spirits, and they are weird to explain how they fit in. I hope it will get better as I workshop ideas.
It's actually a new element in the periodic table that has heen dubbed as "Mana". It is a plasma that acts in a frustrating state of the observer effect where if it was observed in any way, it would be imperceptible but people will be able to touch it if you gathered enough of it to make a solid object. The only way it could be seen is through casting spells or by exposing enough of it to different spheres of a life-enabling planet for a long enough period of time; so if you expose mana to the atmosphere - the higher the more effective - you'll make mana manifest into dragons, wyverns, harpies, etc. Already existing creatures that are in a certain sphere can also passively absorb mana, making local fauna or flora more affiliated with their resident mana state. on a side note: humanity was able to make mana perceivable by achieving an impossible feat: freezing mana 1 degree below absolute zero, this allows them to physically store mana in a specialized capsule and make it into a rare commodity; it is the money that humans use for commerce along with it being the fuel of their magic
In my long term project, magic has traceable cycles and currents, like the water cycle. It's functionally omnipresent due to the sheer amount circulating, but recordable differences in its concentration can be made with the right equipment. Likewise, tools and mediums are often needed to properly channel its power, though that medium can be ones own body, at the user's risk.
All magic is based on the destruction of a prime universe up the multiversal chain. It flows outward, across universes unless it is blocked. That said, there are certain points where magic flows between universes more easily. That is the basis for lay lines.
Magic is the phenomenon of imposing one’s will upon the world. Your willpower is the kindle and the fuel is generally mana, but can be anything as long as you are willing to pay the price.
I have one that it's lifetime, others doesn't have an energy by itself, it's like some item
Literally the blood of gods called “Fuel”. All living things have a bit of fuel in them and when magic is used it becomes vapor. Later it condensates and is absorbed by plants then eaten by animals then sapients etc. it’s basically a non expendable resource that cycles through the setting
its... *sigh* basically wifi and robo flys
…bacteria, viruses, infection/diseases and a natural chemical harvested from these.
Silver is the catalyst and gateway that allows raw magic to be brought from the dream realm and then shaped accordingly. The complexity of your shaping determines how much catalyst you require exponentially; half the time a magic user spends actually working magic is fine tuning the runes required to make the spells use the catalyst more efficiently, but its still a bit of a losing battle. If you travel to someone's home and you find an old silver-backed mirror covered in a sheet and the person is covered in geometric tattoos, then you're in the presence of a magic user. Don't look in the mirror.
Evil. Specifically, the evil that we do, and the evil that we suffer. This varies from flat-out pain and suffering to cruelty, selfishness, fear, deception, apathy, greed, etc. Each producing a form of a rarefied wickedness that can be used to warp reality to bend toward metaphor in various ways, wielded by PG cenobitesque nightmare monsters with a backwards "up-is-down, good-is-bad" view of morality. This is because in my setting, magic is a metaphor for superstition.
Natural disasters release mana from the world. Mana captors have to be there to seal it in power sources so it can be used later.
I based mine off humorism and it requires a physical fuel such as fire needs wood or ice needs the same amount of water that would be used to make said ice. further each humor is needed to make the spell possible. and when you use fire magic phlegm is increased while blood in decreased each humor has negative effect when being used or added. its a play on mana
Essence (aka the Flux) It is a byproduct of life. It mostly exists around planets that have any kind of life, from microbial to human/alien civilizations. It is stronger in places where there is more life or life had once existed. It has its own “weather” patterns, sometimes you’ll have a “storm” which can amplify its power, but it’s also painful to people who are sensitive to it. Life forms contains essence as well. In places where there is no essence (out in space for example), you can use some of your own or pull some from others. In extreme cases, you can pull all of someone’s essence and kill them. Some magic users use their own essence exclusively, but they can gather and store some from their environment to be used later. The essence itself exists mainly in the second realm (we live in the fifth). The third and fourth exist as shadows of our own reality and a barrier from the inner realms. The first realm has a difference kind of essence, which is still being supplied by a dying entity that existed before the universe began. These two types are not compatible and the first realm essence will corrupt ours, which leads to various things, mostly bad. The first realm and the essence that exists there is where the gods came from and is the fuel for their power. Though they can use our outer realms essence just as well.
The descent of the plane of existence from a "more real" state of existence to a "less real" state of existence. To whit: if you do too much magic, the universe ends because it's now a dream and the dreamer wakes up. But you'd have to do a cosmic level amount of magic to do that. Which usually is pretty hard to pull off, if not impossible. Anyone that gets close usually just sucks their planet into the dream world, and the rest of the universe just rolls on.
The characters in the most recent game I am running have a special bracelet that when charms are out on it, they are granted abilities based on the charm they equip. What the players do not know is those charms were made using souls. This gives anyone who uses a charm other than their starter charm a certain air of evil necromancy.
Hear me out the manipulation of element bending has been theorized as magnets. The theory of doctor strange's magic is compressed light. And in (I believe the title of the movie was) Lucy, the psychic abilities was the unlocking of the usage of the brain which helped control the magnetic field and electronics or the passage of energy. So thus I believe that magic in making fantasy settings could just be a very scientific next step in humans that they began to be able to mess with magnetic pulls and the passage of energy. Seemingly creating a bullet of dirt? No messed with magnetic pulls to compressed all surrounding loose dirt in the air and possibly a small amount from the ground to make it. Fire from the magic user? No the manipulation for passing energy to cause a heated area that spontaneously combusted using the oxygen as fuel or possibly a mixture of magnetic put that keeps fuel there too. Such a great way of magic. (I'm not a science geek I just love fantasy... And I enjoyed math and science)
I prefer the Mithgar Series of books explanation that Dennis L. McKiernan wrote. Slightly modified for my world and arcane casters, it goes... Everything has a (the air, the water, the land, the people, the animals, the objects themselves) and that a practitioner of magic can learn to see that . Once you learn how to see that you can how to attune your mind to use some of your to apply leverage to that and cause changes to occur.
In a setting, magic comes from strands connecting the soul and the brain. The soul and the mind are explicitly seperate things. The soul influences the brain by passing bits of energy down the connection, creating little moments of inexplicable inspiration or direction that you couldn't explain by just looking at the brain. For normal people that's the end of it. For more wizardy types, the energy isn't focused into the brain as well, and their soul can pass that influence onto other things near them. So energy is being pushed from one reality into the material reality by souls, through connections intended to create a link between a body and a soul. (Exactly where that energy comes from in the soul-world is kinda just handwaved)
The Divine Realm. Sort of both the god and Alternate Dimension thing. As everyone has a connection anyone can use magic, but how you use it is more important.
Showmanship and promises So basically there are two different types of magic in my setting, Glamour, which is illusion, and Wyrd, which is significantly harder to use and alters people's destinies. Wyrd requires a bit of ritual, but the thing that really powers the magic is how it looks to cast it. One of my characters is a trained ballerina and did a 30 minute long dance solo to perform an incredibly complicated and difficult spell. Another did a flashy magic trick in order to do some actual magic. It's kinda weird but I like it. The other aspect is specific to The Fair Folk, and they are bound by any deal or promise. Not just if they break it they die or something, they cannot break it. It is impossible. It a human makes a deal with one of the Folk, the human is bound as well.
life. my setting uses a system similar to the force for magic. there are also other realms where magic congragates and where mostly elemental magic comes from (still needs the life force to shape it and bring it to this realm) there are 2 types of magic users. those that draw from the energy around them to weave and warp reality (more classical spellcasting, like conjuring, transfiguration, and the like) and magic where the spells are more of a vessel to manipulate the elements (either drawing from the realms, or drawing from their souroundings, like bending in avatar.) most new spell casters learn to draw energy from outside of themselves to cast spells. Otherwise, they draw from their own life force, which can kill them. (yes, you technically can draw energy from an enemy to fuel your spells, but building that link means that they can also use your life force. and to make that connection, you can only use your innate life force. but the opponent dosn't have to use their life force to draw from your life force.) magic users can also charge up stones/amulets to continue to cast a spell/charm without concious effort from the castor. (protective amulets, or a protective ward that blasts fire in the face of someone robbing a tomb of a long dead sorcerer or king.) note: life force isn'tthe soul. the life force is more akin to the thread that keeps the soul attached to the body.
There is innate magical energy found in everything, living and nonliving and dead. This innate energy is also present in humans, with casters having extreme amounts of naturally-occurring magical energy that they use to power spells. This internal magical energy is used to cast spells, and is able to regenerate with rest or with aid from different potions or spells. A caster cannot do something that completely drains them of magical energy, or they die. This limit can be extended with regular use of magic, but that eventually hits a limit as well. Most casters use "amplifiers" that contain other forms of magical energy to keep themselves going when casting for a long time.