Fantasy [Title TBD] - Origins and Magic System Brainstorm

[Gravitational Force]

I didn't like the shutting it off part is what I'm saying.

 

[Pandaskel]

I didn't like the shutting it off part is what I'm saying.

But you wanna keep the gods?

 

[Gravitational Force]

I meant that magic and the gods were connected. Like magic allows for the existence of gods, not the other way around.

 

[Pandaskel]

I meant that magic and the gods were connected. Like magic allows for the existence of gods, not the other way around.

How do you define "god"?

 

[Gravitational Force]

Like in The Magicians. So Earth deities and mythical figures with inborn magical abilities, portfolios and domains, and an interest in either worshipers or other concerns.

 

[Pandaskel]

Like in The Magicians. So Earth deities and mythical figures with inborn magical abilities, portfolios and domains, and an interest in either worshipers or other concerns.

So we keep gods like Bacchus, Ember, and Umber, but not the Old Gods who own magic

 

[Gravitational Force]

Pretty much

 

[Pandaskel]

Pretty much

So you don't want magic like in the Magicians XD It doesn't just flow into the world, it comes from the Old Gods. We were discussing what our magical source is gonna be, remember.

 

[Gravitational Force]

I thought I made it clear: it flows into the universe, allowing magic and giving rise to gods. The source itself would be a plane of magic.

 

[Morzone]

Personally, I prefer the "Ancient Dieties" method. In essence, in a time dating back to the beginning of mankind there were a series of supreme Dieties that each controlled an aspect (or element, I usually like to use this for elemental magic systems) of universal energy, or magic. The Dieties placed their magic into all sorts of things, living and non-living, to create the beginnings of what the world is today. The Dieties have long since vanished, presumably that they expended so much of their magic in the creation of the world that they went into an eternal slumber. So Magic is a kind of Energy that flows both inside and outside a person, and all you need are the proper conditions to tap into the energy to make it do what you want.

 

[Pandaskel]

Personally, I prefer the "Ancient Dieties" method. In essence, in a time dating back to the beginning of mankind there were a series of supreme Dieties that each controlled an aspect (or element, I usually like to use this for elemental magic systems) of universal energy, or magic. The Dieties placed their magic into all sorts of things, living and non-living, to create the beginnings of what the world is today. The Dieties have long since vanished, presumably that they expended so much of their magic in the creation of the world that they went into an eternal slumber. So Magic is a kind of Energy that flows both inside and outside a person, and all you need are the proper conditions to tap into the energy to make it do what you want.

There's this idea from The Magicians that I think you'll like if you like the Ancient Deities angle. *Warning, spoiler* One of the soft parts of that magic system is how much people know about the Old Gods, which isn't much. The bit we, the audience, do get to know comes from someone who ascended beyond being human and got to travel the universe and whatnot. She says that the Old Gods, the ones who control magic, are so big and far beyond each individual world that they don't really mind them. I think the comparison she makes is that humans are like individual cells to these gods. They're ignorable for the most part but if they become malignant, the gods amputate. That's the whole discussion me and Zero just had about being able to shut off magic. Humans harm a god and so the Old Gods shut off earth's magic.

It's different from the idea of the gods being dead, asleep, or completely apathetic, which is what we usually see in fiction, so I liked it a lot. I'm not saying we use it, I just thought you would appreciate it.


Me, personally, I'm not a fan of gods, but they're definitely an option as the Source.

 

[Morzone]

There's this idea from The Magicians that I think you'll like if you like the Ancient Deities angle. *Warning, spoiler* One of the soft parts of that magic system is how much people know about the Old Gods, which isn't much. The bit we, the audience, do get to know comes from someone who ascended beyond being human and got to travel the universe and whatnot. She says that the Old Gods, the ones who control magic, are so big and far beyond each individual world that they don't really mind them. I think the comparison she makes is that humans are like individual cells to these gods. They're ignorable for the most part but if they become malignant, the gods amputate. That's the whole discussion me and Zero just had about being able to shut off magic. Humans harm a god and so the Old Gods shut off earth's magic.

It's different from the idea of the gods being dead, asleep, or completely apathetic, which is what we usually see in fiction, so I liked it a lot. I'm not saying we use it, I just thought you would appreciate it.


Me, personally, I'm not a fan of gods, but they're definitely an option as the Source.

Well, if you want to tone down the "deity" aspect of it, another way to do it is to channel magic through the use of Magical entities and creatures. This could mean summoning Elemental plane spirits to cause a phenominom, or maybe you have to make a pact with a familiar to be able to channel the magic of that familiar. Or perhaps its something more occult, where you have to draw power from demons, angels, Dyrads, Elementals, and other entities that exist in their own magic. (Or perhaps all of these at once) The general idea in this case being that humans themselves do not have their own magic, but have the ability to access magic from the various species and magical entities around them.

I usually use the "ancient Deities" method because it works as a good base for how the culture of modern day has developed. For instance, If the Ancient beigns were jealous of each other's powers and constantly fought, modern day would generally reflect that through the existence of separate kingdoms, caste systems, or other cultural methods to separate people out into demographics based on who's deity's magic they inherited.

 

[Sprite Pepsi]

Shouldn't we talk more about how the magic is gonna work before where it comes from?

 

[Pandaskel]

Shouldn't we talk more about how the magic is gonna work before where it comes from?

I actually think, logically, the source would come first. We can't analyze the sound of a guitar without first acknowledging the vibrating string it's coming from.

 

[Morzone]

If we were going with a mainly soft Magic system we wouldn't need to worry about its source, but since we want to balance it we need to have a general idea of where magic comes from.

 

[Pandaskel]

I like Gravitational Force 's source the best, where magic is just a natural resource that exists in the world, like water or air. It's a force of nature just like anything else. If we do have a specific starting point, I personally wouldn't want it to be a conscious sentient being. I'd rather have it be the same as a natural source, like nebulas for stars or the sun for light and heat. Maybe the center of the universe is just this swirling wibbly-wobbly ball of magical goodness and all our worlds are little sparkling droplets flying off.

 

[Sprite Pepsi]

I actually think, logically, the source would come first.

But it's better to agree how magic works first, before deiceding the source. Otherwise we might decide on a source that restricts what sort of magic will work.

Plus, it can be pretty hard decideding the source of something without knowing how it works.

 

[Pandaskel]

But it's better to agree how magic works first, before deiceding the source. Otherwise we might decide on a source that restricts what sort of magic will work.

Plus, it can be pretty hard decideding the source of something without knowing how it works.

Fair enough. So, how does magic work?

 

[Morzone]

But it's better to agree how magic works first, before deiceding the source. Otherwise we might decide on a source that restricts what sort of magic will work.

Plus, it can be pretty hard decideding the source of something without knowing how it works.

That's... the whole point of deciding the source first though. You have to have restrictions, or else everything is just a chaotic "I can because Magic." Those restrictions have to be tied together in a logcial way, or else they would contradict each other and negate themselves.

If this was real life, sure we'd start with the 'How.' ""How does this work?" followed by, "Why is this how it works?" And you end up with "It works like this because of What magic is." But as we're the ones developing the magic along with the world itself, we need to start with the "what" as the "Why" and the "how" will naturally follow.

 

[Sprite Pepsi]

Fair enough. So, how does magic work?

As mentioned previously, I'm a big fan of how magic seem to work in Warhammer.

In short, you have 8 diffrent "winds of magoc" that people can tap into to cast spells. But each wind is associated with it's own form of magic. So you have like the wind of shadow which lets you cast illusion magic and the wind of fire that lets you cast fire magic and etc. Maybe we could do something like that?

 

[Sprite Pepsi]

You have to have restrictions, or else everything is just a chaotic "I can because Magic."

I agree. But I rather we decide those restrictions first and then talk about where it comes from.

 

[Pandaskel]

That's... the whole point of deciding the source first though. You have to have restrictions, or else everything is just a chaotic "I can because Magic." Those restrictions have to be tied together in a logcial way, or else they would contradict each other and negate themselves.

If this was real life, sure we'd start with the 'How.' ""How does this work?" followed by, "Why is this how it works?" And you end up with "It works like this because of What magic is." But as we're the ones developing the magic along with the world itself, we need to start with the "what" as the "Why" and the "how" will naturally follow.

I think what they mean is that, since we're the creators, we should decide what we want first. Sort of like deciding where you want to go before deciding how you want to get there.

 

[Pandaskel]

As mentioned previously, I'm a big fan of how magic seem to work in Warhammer.

In short, you have 8 diffrent "winds of magoc" that people can tap into to cast spells. But each wind is associated with it's own form of magic. So you have like the wind of shadow which lets you cast illusion magic and the wind of fire that lets you cast fire magic and etc. Maybe we could do something like that?

That could be cool! I'm a fan of the New Age-y woo-woo theory that the universe operates on vibrational frequencies and Soul Eater has something kind of like that, so maybe rather than 8 winds we could have like 12 frequencies of magic? And you have to "resonate" at any given frequency to do something

 

[Morzone]

That could be cool! I'm a fan of the New Age-y woo-woo theory that the universe operates on vibrational frequencies and Soul Eater has something kind of like that, so maybe rather than 8 winds we could have like 12 frequencies of magic? And you have to "resonate" at any given frequency to do something

Surprisingly, I actually really like this idea. At any given moment, the universe is giving off 13 different "frequencies of reality" One of them is real life and is normally the only one we experience, the other twelve can be used to distort reality by forcing reality to resonate at a different frequency. This causes magical phenomena to occur, which a magician can better control the better understanding they have of controlling the different frequencies.

As a note though, make sure you actually know what the "12" and 8" and so on actually are before throwing numbers around. When we draw up a list we may end up removing or adding some.

Also, going to point out that "winds of magic" and "frequencies" are still sources, you haven't actually described how tapping into the winds to cast spells works, nor how one would go about "resonating" with the different frequencies.

 

[Pandaskel]

Surprisingly, I actually really like this idea. At any given moment, the universe is giving off 13 different "frequencies of reality" One of them is real life and is normally the only one we experience, the other twelve can be used to distort reality by forcing reality to resonate at a different frequency. This causes magical phenomena to occur, which a magician can better control the better understanding they have of controlling the different frequencies.

As a note though, make sure you actually know what the "12" and 8" and so on actually are before throwing numbers around. When we draw up a list we may end up removing or adding some.

Also, going to point out that "winds of magic" and "frequencies" are still sources, you haven't actually described how tapping into the winds to cast spells works, nor how one would go about "resonating" with the different frequencies.

Do we wanna draw the list up now? That'd probably be a good idea, I think.