Building a Functional Magic System

Hello there,

I've been trying to pull my thoughts together to create a magic system for a fantasy setting I'm working on, and I'm running in to usual doubts and roadblocks on making it seem "realistic" (in the sense that it actually has rules and regulations to what people can and can't do). I was hoping to get some directions and maybe some ideas to help flesh the system out as well.

If it helps, the setting is roughly equivalent to the mid- to late 1700s/Napoleonic era

Here's what I have so far:

• Cannot create or destroy matter
• Fairly rare skill; only about .01% of the population of the world has the skill (basing on estimates of the world population being around 1 billion in 1790, that should mean about 10 million people worldwide unless my math's incorrect)
• Can only be developed through rigorous study; some people can briefly tap into magic in odd circumstances, but that usually manifests as something mundane like a brief feat of great strength or unusually good luck at playing cards. To do real spells, you need to study and learn the right "mental paths" in order to channel energy and get the result
• Once one does start studying and casting, a magic user gets "locked in" to their chosen path; they might know some basic spells from multiple disciplines, but anything more complex is beyond them because they just don't understand the right pathing as mentioned earlier (example, someone well versed in Healing could probably mend a bone in fifty different ways while also slowing aging and dissipating illness, but wouldn't know a Fire spell beyond heating up a cup of water to make tea)
• Every magic user has a "pool" of magic that refreshes with rest and restorative activities (like eating, naps, sitting down for some light reading). You can go over this, but the effects can range from extreme drowsiness and headaches to necrosis, Rapid Aging, and insanity (in extreme cases)
• Can be effected positively or negatively by substances; caffeine can cause higher bursts of magical energy in exchange for a harder crash once it wears off, while alcohol can depress and stunt magical usage
• Small bits of magic can be sealed within special substances, like silver or gemstones, to create a weaker but long-lasting effect (and probably the only way that people can break the rule about being locked into one discipline- if you have a gem that's enchanted with a wind spell, for example, while it won't be as powerful as a pure wind spell it'd still create a nice dustup). This can also be done to corpses for necromancy, but that has the same effect as overdoing the magic pool does while normal enchantment follows the standard rules and doesn't have any lasting effects if done right

And that's about all I've got so far. I've got some vague ideas about more things I want to do (practical uses for combat and sailing, would prophetic dreams and seers work or not), but I wanted to have a more solid foundation to work with before diving in to the general effects and "cool" spells.

Edited by iowaforever on Nov 27th 2023 at 6:56:03 AM

Hmm...I'm not sure what you're looking for here. More clarity on what role you want magic users/use to play in your world might help?

But a couple of thoughts off the top of my head. Is there a straightforward way to test for/detect magical capability? If not, there may be real problems with finding able users and passing along skills.

The time period here is interesting, you've got major population upswings and (assuming magic users are powerful) you've got a potential accelerating factor for imperial accumulation (more people = more magic users = more military strength) and you're entering an era of increased state capacity (to test more people for magical capability). But you're also (at least in our world) at the dawn of nationalism, which would push the other direction, towards greater fragmentation.

This model of magic also seems to push towards regional/national/ethnic specialization. If specific training is needed to be a mage who throws fireballs, versus a mage who heals wounds and it's that rare, well, folks won't have a list of options to pick from and societies will likely specialize in whatever training their people have figured out.

Now for a multi-cultural empire, this potentially gives them a major advantage, in access to multiple magical disciplines. Indeed, we could imagine an Ottoman or Austro-Hungarian analogue pulling in healers from one region, fire mages from another, water mages from a third and trying to use them to strengthen (or expand) the empire as a whole.

Or, if you wanted to go another way with it, creating a training ground where mages from throughout the empire could come to learn the magical discipline of their choice, except that of their origin group as part of an effort to force a more unified culture (analogous Genghis Khan's decimal system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan)).

Of course, a lot of that works with sensitive issues surrounding imperialism, cultural appropriation and cultural genocide, you may not want to touch.

Not sure how helpful it was. But two other things that might be helpful:

Brandon Sanderson's lecture on magical systems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXAcA_y3l6M

A shorter, more broad discussion of hard magic systems, with some examples that may be helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMJQb5bGu_g

Thank you for your feedback and some places to get started.

My original thoughts on the role of magic was that mages with combat ability would be organized along the lines of living artillery batteries, but had also started branching out into more "creative" uses as the population grew and intermingled (I do like the idea of "region locking" some skills and disciplines depending on national and ethnic customs and needs). One of the characters I was working on that has magic was planned to be the helmsman of a ship that used wind magic to steer and accelerate the vessel beyond what normal wind power would provide, and an idea for a villain I had was a fellow whose lack of talent in magic was slowly turning his appearance more skeletal and spooky due to abusing what little magic reserves he has in his attempts at necromancy as I described it here.

So, a rare but growing presence that is changing how the world works and functions now that more people with more talent are being gathered together in one place or another.

Well, we need to know what kind of story you are writing, because magic exists to solve and cause problems for the protagonist, so what kind of problems will the protagonist most likely encounter? Combat? Exploration of worlds? Solving existential questions? Forming and maintaining meaningful relationships? Spying?

Worldbuilding serves the story, so what's your story?

I found [https://fantasy-hive.co.uk/2019/12/a-guide-to-writing-magic-systems/ this approach]] really helpful.

Edited by DeMarquis on Nov 28th 2023 at 8:12:57 AM

As of right now, I'm starting on a base level with a simple exploration/nautical story with some high level political intrigue and saber rattling going on in the background (essentially a group of outcasts set out in search of pirate treasure and accidentally spark the equivalent of the Seven Years War/Napoleonic Wars in the process. The war stuff I'm developing in the background for a possible P.O.V. Sequel).

Edited by iowaforever on Nov 28th 2023 at 11:41:33 AM

How common is this, and can this mundane magic be trained. E.g, could a well-trained card player reliably use magic with cards. Cause i think this is potentially the most interesting application of your idea: people learn magic by this chance encounter and then either have to perfect their trick or try to discern more universal rules. But it would greatly synergise with your other statement about magic: if someone discovered magic by playing cards, they may genuinely have no idea nor any chance to discover the "feel" of other magics. And if they can learn to reliably reproduce their "trick", it makes locking-in to a specific type of magic much more believable.

Just imagine the black magic-market which passes magic-infused drugs around to the unfortunate.

Like smoking a herbal-powder made by a time-wizard's power which allows the one inhaling it to see a random possible future, only for the odds of the one they're seeing actually happening being 10% at best.

Just one example.

Edited by Trainbarrel on Nov 28th 2023 at 6:57:04 PM

My original notes on the magic item bit was that it was a permanent depower... not sure why I changed that idea

That just creates the opposite problem of why anyone would ever want to voluntarily depower themselves.

Bad guys forced them to do it?

I like that it's the mid to late 1700's because as far as I know that's when Enlightenment Rationalism really began to change the culture, so there would be prestige and alliances based on how a person thinks that tracks with the way of the magic system.

Everything that you've listed sounds all right to me, but it's really a matter of how it plays into the plot.

This is the only point I advise kicking to the curb:

I understand the desire to diversify the skills within a party, but I think the specialty should only be limited by each person's interest and inclination, maybe the societal support to get somebody on a pathing rather that wishywashy-ing around...rather than it being like a natural law that healers can't cast a lot of fire only because that's apparently a natural law of magic. It reads as too categorical to me as in like the hand of the author reached into the story.

Otherwise, I think you're good to go!

Edited by Saint-Starflicker on Nov 28th 2023 at 8:08:24 AM

I'm going to add a note in counterpoint to that last: I quite like the idea that learning magic incurs changes that prevent one from learning another form of magic. That magic is like water, and once one has made a channel for it magic will only flow down that channel, carving it deeper over time, and not leap to other channels.

It basically suggests that the practice of magic parallels academic disciplines, which provides a particular vibe and model for the story.

You're exploration ship is being protected by a college educated professional, which immediately introduces tensions among the crew. And that's a good thing.

I think it's good if enchanting is something people can chose to do depending on circumstance, and not limited by contrivances.

It's just a matter of finding an appropriate cost. For instance, certain materials are beneficial to certain magics. or perhaps more generalist: a material needs to be able to withstand the spell, and needs to be sufficiently pure to sustain its intricacy. Meaning that you can't just put a thermonuclear fireball spell into a wooden stick. A relatively simple spell like a fireball might be something you could put into a piece of iron, but an intricate healing spell might only be supportable with pure gold. Again, the era helps here since access to materials (and of sufficient purity) would still be a real challenge: a mage could not simply order a ton of 99% pure copper to mass produce fireball cartridges.

Similarly, there may be limits on speed. Enchanting might take a day, which is relatively fast for more powerful and intricate spells but slow if you're making bullets.

Alltogether, the end result is the question of whether something is easier to do by magic or mundane means. Plate armor could stop bullets for a long time but lost out because equipping 10 people with a gun was more useful than equipping and training 1 knight.

Seconded. One of the most interesting magic systems i encountered was one where magic could be learned or obtained a variety of ways, but inevitably changed the person. A particularly powerful fire mage was attuned to fire and consisted of fire (and was defeated by dumping an entire lake on him). In another case, a person with both fire and death magic had both magics fight over him until both destroyed the other, leaving him magicless.

So it can be approached like study, where magic doesn't have many transferable skills, and so you have incredible depth of knowledge but little width. But you can also have the magic chose the person and reject other powers in turn.

Edited by devak on Nov 29th 2023 at 6:27:36 PM

I originally chose gems as the holders for enchantments because there were a few limitations; scarcity in a pre-industrial setting, brittleness, and the need for purity. Yeah, you could just use any old gemstone, but unless it was of high quality the spell would just sputter and be generally useless, thus limiting enchanted or magic items to the realm of the super rich or the super lucky. Way back when I was first coming up with the idea enchantments were going to be revealed when the heroes stumbled across the torture chamber of an evil prince who was using blood sacrifice to try and give himself magic powers, but I felt that was a little too grimdark

So the magic-user who can "turn carbon into diamonds" would be one heck of a Living Macguffin for all of the other magic users in this setting, I assume?

And additionally, carbon is everywhere in this world so those diamonds would be useless as a way to get money, but highly valuable for magic purposes since they are indeed, high-quality and pure diamonds.

The setting is an approximate comparison to the 1700s- synthetic diamonds and gemstones would still be about 100 years off from being a thing based on real life timetables (while diamonds were discovered to be carbon in 1797, no one successfully synthesized one until 1879), so it's possible that someone might have the power, but not the knowledge or resources to do so

Can't they just experiment with the power until it works?

"Trial and error is the elementary process of science", right?

Learn how Earth does it and mimic the method on a smaller scale from there?

Then again, having a magic power you can't use because the science behind it haven't been discovered yet would show how lucky the ones who can use their magic in the time-period really are...

Edited by Trainbarrel on Dec 1st 2023 at 4:27:15 PM

Sure but this takes time. If OP's story only spans a few years, the discovery may happen decades after the story ends, making it irrelevant.

It reminds me of discussions of "prep time", that's nice but will you actually *have* that time. If someone became a carbon mage at the start of the story, that doesn't mean they'll figure out diamonds within the span of it's run.

What I wanna know is what kinds of paths are there and if it's possible to create new ones? Because as society changes, so too must magic.

It's definitely possible, if we're going with the parallels to academic study there can be multiple avenues of study and magic spread across a few core "disciplines". As people gain more knowledge of the natural world and the nature of magic they might start incorporating that knowledge into newer, grander spells and feats.

As for those paths, still working on that- I am a bit of a develop as you go kind of writer and wanted to get some ground rules first before building from there, and I'm still thinking and fleshing things out.

They're going to be able to do some impressive weather control once they figure out what air pressure is.

Well that depends on how much power they have. If magic is something that requires study, it wouldn't really become a major deal until you pretty much get an industrial revolution, as literacy rates before that were very low. it would be an elite hobby at best.

But that also means that the actual power ceiling may be entirely unexplored.

As an aside, that's not really what i've seen mentioned: what exactly is a person's limit on power and magic reserves? Could you stock up for years? Can you deplete your stocked magic in seconds? Major weather control would likely require some serious power and range of magic, is that achievable?

How complex is magic? there's this typical "smart protagonist" trope of someone using minor-seeming magic in an overpowered way (like giving your enemy a stroke with local application of magic). Could you cast such magic?

Thinking of magical reserves, are there quick ways to restore one's "pool" of magic? Or of holding onto more magic than one's pool would normally allow?

(I'm thinking of a setting in which I recently read, where magic-users could store up more magic than they would otherwise recover by taking it from others. (With those others then usually recovering naturally.))

This is what I have so far on limits.

The limit is based on how "deep" the pool of magic they have is, which can be expanded gradually through study, practice, and experimentation. Of course there is a limit that one can hit at some point. Think of it like physical exercise- you can make great gains and do a lot more when first starting out, but eventually you'll plateau and getting greater reserves is difficult if not outright impossible (so if you start at one fireball a day, eventually you might get the capacity to do ten a day, but you will reach your limit and won't be able to get to eleven no matter how hard you try). The pool also isn't a universal constant, so some people naturally have a deeper pool of energy to draw on than others.

There is no way to quickly replenish the pool; as stated, after burning a whole bunch of magic a magic user needs time, rest, and most likely food to restock the pool. Overclocking makes the need worse, so it's possible to go in guns blazing and potentially overrun your limits then sleep for two days straight (and that's if your usage doesn't induce the other, nastier side effects). And there's no external storage either- going with the metaphor of a pool, once you take water out of it it ceases being "part" of the pool and becomes a "part" of whatever else it's in or on. So If you infuse magic to make a magic item as mentioned above, that magic's gone from you until you rest and restore your power normally, and even if you break the gem it'll just dissipate and be useless.

Edited by iowaforever on Dec 4th 2023 at 3:02:24 PM