I noticed a lot of people creating suggestion threads about magic recently, and as I have put a lot of thought into such a system, I decided to post my ideas about what my ideal magic system would be like.
I created it with the following in mind:
Core15; Core24; Core40; Req96; Bloat35; Bloat97; Bloat134; Bloat147; Bloat238; Bloat330; PowerGoal29; PowerGoal58; PowerGoal60; PowerGoal64; PowerGoal65; PowerGoal68; PowerGoal70; PowerGoal75; PowerGoal83; PowerGoal84; PowerGoal89; PowerGoal92; PowerGoal101; PowerGoal107; PowerGoal108; PowerGoal128
I also tried to take some of Toady’s ideas and implementations from Armok I, and I tried to make it as flexible as possible, and tried to make the components separate, so that people could disable individual parts if wanted, or even disable it all.
My main inspiration came from Edding’s the Belgariad and the Iron Kingdoms (they have the most awesome dragons ever. They made them epic, unlike what DnD has done to them).
People who can use magic:
Magic is a raw force of power that can be accessed by different means, and at different strengths. While very few creatures can directly access this power, there are many different ways of indirectly accessing magic, and with the help of various items, nearly anyone can access it.
Pretty much any creature can access magic to some degree, and the soul is the place that can access it. Some rare people have the type of soul that can directly tap into the power; these are the types of wizards that can alter the entire course of history, and can take entire coalitions of nations to take on and kill. Thankfully, these people are rare, there is perhaps one born in several generations. These people are generally blessed with a great intelligence and a long lifespan, outliving their more mundane cousins. They spend their time studying the world, as their knowledge can help improve their magic, and perhaps they could discover new things about the world.
A wizard is treated as their own civilization, owing allegiance to no individual country, and having the power to back that up. As such, they could raise their own army of mercenaries, or even some people who swear their allegiance to them. Wizards hardly ever take apprentices, but sometimes they do, and sometimes there are even groups of Wizards working on some task or another, perhaps compelled by some greater force. However, their most loyal followers are the golems that they create to so tasks for them, and even do war with them. Golems are more durable than a fleshy meatbag, but learn more slowly, and have to be “programmed” to do specific tasks, so you can’t change their jobs as easily.
For those who were not born with such luck, there are many other ways to access magic. By using various materials, a few specific gestures, and some powerful words, they can lead magic into their soul for a short period of time, and release it. This magic does not come as naturally, but it still gets the job done. Sometimes they apprentice themselves to a wizard, as while the wizard may not cast the same way, their knowledge of the inner workings of magic is unparalleled. Magical research is interesting to some in this field. Do not underestimate what these learned mages can accomplish, as the greatest amongst them can rival the might of a natural wizard. Large nations employ magical colleges, where research and training for mages-to-be is unparalleled. Mages can also put a bit of magic into an item, imbuing it with magical qualities, or perhaps having it conjure a certain kind of magic at a later date. While creating a magic item is a hard task, it is well worth being able to use magic in an instant, instead of needing to spend time casting.
Some mages aren’t educated, they are a result of an affinity with magic, but much less than a wizard. They experiment with material components, stumble through gestures, and choke through words to come into their magical prowess. As a result, their magic can be more chaotic, and have a style distinctly their own.
Elementalists are mages who specialize in a particular element. They are more often people who aren’t formally educated, and either were taught be a spirit of an element or felt a strong tie with that element. They can take the traits of the element that they affiliate with. The elements include: Earth; Fire; Wind (includes Sonic and Sound); Water; Lightning; Metal ; and Cosmos. (Note: there are also elemental states, such as holy/unholy, good/evil, mundane/fantastic, light/dark, etc. etc.)
In addition to mages, rune-crafters and other such professions exist, people who have found magic in words and shapes. These people do not refer to themselves as a mage, but instead as a craftsman, and take pride in their lack of waving their arms around and chanting silly words. These runes channel magic into them, and imbue it into the stone. These stones or gems could be embedded into objects, giving them supernatural powers, or they could be one-use items, such as gems that explode with magical cold when thrown against something.
While some creatures may not be able to access magic, every soul has some magical capability. This is generally exploited in one of two ways. The first way in a magical ritual, which gathers anywhere from a few to hundreds or people to join in. A trained mage or wizard (or priest) can then harness the magical energy created by each person, and use that energy to do things otherwise beyond his capabilities. However, the people in the ritual have some say in what they will do, and the magic they supply is directly related to their personal beliefs and values, a.k.a., if an evil wizard tricked an entire village to chanting to rain fire from the sky, the villagers must know what they are doing on some level to cause the ritual to succeed.
The second use for souls is a lot darker. This use actually extracts a soul from a person, generally from someone who recently died, in the gap of time where their soul is still in the world and yet hasn’t moved on. Souls can then be used to power vile machines, or empower gems in a similar way that rune-crafters will. The inherent magic in souls can act as a power source, and entire cities could be run on the vile acts. However, most souls don’t have an unlimited source of magic, and once the soul is run dry, it is utterly annihilated, removed from the cosmos forever.
Souls can also be used to fuel the life of the undead, changing mindless zombies and skeletons to dark vampires and ghouls, or even creating specters and ghosts. The power of the soul is largely not understood, as only the most depraved would be willing to utterly destroy people to figure it out.
A soul can also be extracted from a non-humanoid, and this is not considered nearly as vile an act, as the other creatures are stupid and not as important as humanoids. It is not uncommon to find a fire-imp-soul powered sword or something like that in the right type of shop.
Priests are another type of magic users entirely. Their powers are not tied to their personal capabilities (though they may have a talent for it, and may even be priest/mages), but to the capabilities of their God. Their God blesses them with divine strength, and they can use that strength to perform miracles, such as baptisms and ceremonies, or even healings. The Gods do not grant equal power to every priest; it is instead based on a hierarchy, either determined by the religion, or the God. The most powerful of priests can even return the dead to life, though the process is so taxing to the God and the priest that it is rarely done.
Magic is versatile, and the uses I’ve described here are by no means the only ways to use it. There are evil witches that make pacts with spirits in the area, and exploit the inherent magic of various plants and other things, and the workings of fey magic all but unknown to most practitioners of magic. There could even be liches, who exploit the undeath to unnaturally prolong their life.
How to use magic:
Usage of magic varies depending on the user. However, there are many characteristics of it that are universal amongst those who use it. Magic is fatigue-based. Doing a basic task, such as digging a hole, takes an equivalent amount of energy as physically digging the hole, but it is all focused in one action. For the unprepared, it initially seems to be a lot more trouble than it’s worth, but while there is a strict limit on physical tasks, the mind can be trained to have almost no limit.
Like I said earlier, very few have direct access to magic. What that actually means is that most people cannot call magic to them whenever they want, they need some sort of focus for their abilities. That is what material components, gestures, incantations, runes, and other things do: they provide a method for people to access magic. For some, this skill comes a lot easier to, and for others it’s nearly impossible. While it is highly difficult, theoretically anybody could become a mage.
When trying to do something with magic, knowledge of what one is trying to do is crucial. For instance, in order to heal someone of a sickness, knowledge of the human body is a must, as is what the sickness is, and knowledge of other cures helps out as well. When trying to transform into an animal, the form, movement, and structure of the animal is required, else you become some sort of twisted mockery of it. Summoning requires some knowledge of the creature summoned, as well as placing mental bounds on what the creature can do, else it turn on you. Use of material components can lessen this need, as the components can provide a substitute for knowledge. For instance, using a twig as a component to create fire can lessen the knowledge needed because of the way it interacts with fire.
The material component needed is highly dependent on what one is trying to do. For instance, trying to conjure a fireball could perhaps use a small piece of wood, saltpeter, or the traditional bat guano. While larger material components could be used, they are much more impractical, as carrying around a twig is much easier than carrying an entire tree.
Souls are used in a similar matter, but there is a key difference. Souls are used as a kind of magnet to attract magic, but at great suffering to the soul. The raw currents of the magic flow through the soul, tearing it apart from the inside and eventually destroying it over the course of weeks f agony. That means that someone who is interested in souls needs a constant supply of them. If the soul of a mage or (Gods forbid) a wizard, then the soul is much more durable, and can last for years, or, in the case of the wizard, decades, as they are much more used to magic flowing through them.
More about Wizards (and golems):
Wizards are users of magic who capabilities are far above most other users of magic. These mighty men and women can change the entire course of history, and can fight toe to toe with entire civilizations. They are unrivaled sources of knowledge about the world, as knowledge is essential to gaining more power. However, they generally are aloof, and seldom care about furthering the knowledge of others. That being said, there are records of wizards who spent a great deal of time spreading their knowledge and using their power to help others, so there are indeed exceptions.
Because of the large amount of time they spend studying and experimenting, very few wizards will go without their golem servants. Golems are created to do tasks for the wizards, and can range from miners and wood cutters to brewers and farmers to military golems. The time it takes to create a golem makes them a chore to make, but the payoffs are vast. With an army of golems, a wizard doesn’t have to make his own food (they could conjure it, but few wizards learn enough about food to make it taste any good, much less make it entirely edible), build their own towers, fight off the goblins, or do anything but further their magical abilities.
Golems are made up of several components. By far the most important is the core. This is generally a glass sphere imbued with a large amount of magical energy. This energy acts kind of as the brain and the soul of the golem mixed into one source, and it powers the whole creation. When a wizard creates a core, it tells the core what tasks it wants it to do, and how to do them. Also, as a side effect of pouring so much magical energy into the core, the core gains a slight personality, though much more primitive than a humanoids. After that, the golem can perform that task, and even learn how to do it better than it as told to (though it learns at a much slower rate that a humanoid). If the wizard wants it do a different task, it has to directly access the core, and tell it to do something else. A wizard will typically inscribe a name onto the core, and will call the golem by that name. The core is the sole determiner of the capabilities of the golem, so if the wizard switches the cores of two golems, the capabilities and personalities of the two golems will switch as well. Finally, if a golem is destroyed, but the core maintains intact, if the core is placed in a new golem, the core will perform perfectly. If the core is damaged, the golem will perform tasks slower, will learn slower, and it may eventually shut down completely.
The rest of golems are composed of a torso, a head, and various appendages, not necessarily four, and not necessarily arms and legs. A golem could consist of four legs and a crossbow mounted on its head. Its four legs would provide additional mobility and stability, and the crossbow being mounted in its head would provide even more stability. Most wizards will choose to create a humanoid golem, as it is the most versatile of the forms.
Golems can last for years, but eventually their bodies will break down. However, the cores will not generally die off, and by switching out cores, golems can last forever, or al least until their core becomes damaged.
A wizard will come to a place that he wants to make his fort with a few golems, and during this time, he will be highly active in creating his fortress by conjuring various materials needed, and by overseeing the workings of his golems. Once things have more or less settled down, the wizard will then lets his golems do his work for him.
That is not to say that golems are his only servants. A wizard will attract individuals from all races that want to work for him, and wizards will generally pay well. It is not uncommon to see elves, dwarves, humans, and even the occasional goblin or kobold all living in houses (or underground) next to a wizard’s tower. Not that every wizard wants to deal with these interlopers, some wizards will completely shut themselves off from everyone else, a kill those who try and disturb his peace.
The magic itself:
Magic is life. Magic is energy, flowing all around us at all times. However, magic is much easier to manipulate than other energy, prefers certain areas to others.
(Honestly, I haven’t put a lot of thought into this. I think that magic have a fair distribution all over the world, perhaps a little stronger in some places than others, but I don’t think it should have streams. However, streams would fit the setting of this world better, and would be interesting.
One idea involving streams that I had was that there are two kinds of magic flows in the world, good flows and evil flows. Evil areas are where there are no good flows, and good areas have no evil flows. There are perhaps some naturally created areas, but more common is that evil flows would not enter areas where the land has been blessed, and good flows will not enter areas that have been defiled. These could occur thanks to certain events, or even due to individual’s efforts.)
To wrap it all up:
I created a (I hope) large diversity of different kinds of wizards in this write up. I tried to think of ways that each one of them could be interesting.
I wanted to create a system that could have both all-powerful wizards, and your typical adventuring wizard. I hope I created a system that was worth reading about, as it is admittedly very long, and perhaps tedious. Thank you for reading this.
[EDIT: cleaned it up a bit]
[ February 26, 2008: Message edited by: mutant mell ]
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Topic: Generalized Theory of Magic (Read 4066 times)