Magic Rational

[Drawmack]

I was just curious how, and if, you rationalize magic in your game world. I'm not talking rules, or magic level or anything - I'm talking stricktly flavor.

Here is mine just to get this party started:

Magic, all magic, comes from flows of energy that surround the world like invisible rivers. The casting of a spell is taking some of this energy and through a ritual internalizing it and shapping it to the caster's desire. Overtime casters get more apt at controlling and shapping the energies, thereby learning to cast more powerful spells.

Sorcery vs. Wizardry
Some people are born with an inate ability to feel the energy flows. This ability allows them to perform magic almost as if it were a birthed ability. Others though must work hard to connect with the energy flows. These people must perform a daily ritual that allows them to be connected with the energy flows.

Bardic Magic
Some believe that music can tame the savage beast. In the cases of the world's greatest performers music also has the power to tame the savage energy. These rare and talented people can use their performance to shape the energy to their will. As they progress in their chareers they learn more complex melodies that can work greater deeds of magic.

Divine Magic
Some people are so in tune with the gods that those gods forge a channel into the energies for them. This channel is maintained by communing with your patron diety in some way. Some people pray, others commune with nature, others are simply so devoted to their cause that the gods show favor on them.


okay so let's hear it and remember flavor not rules.

 

[Zappo]

Sorcery: telling a lie so convincing that the universe believes you.

 

[nHammer]

My view on it is this...

Magic is like oxygen. It can't be seen but permeates the air and is everywhere.

Wizards shape the magic by using verbal, samantics and material components is specific ways.

Sorcerers pull the magic into them, and then when needed he shapes and releases that magic.

Divine magic: When a God accepts a follower as a spellcaster, the God extends a thread of magic and attaches it to that follower. This is the persons link to his God. A divine caster uses the magic of that thread to power his spells.

I don't know if any of this makes sense, but it's basicly how I think of it.

 

[Tsyr]

Since I don't use default DnD magic, this won't make as much sense, but...

Magic is a cross between energy and the selective manipulation of reality. "Magic energy", called "mana" or "essence", flows across the world in ley lines and gathers in nexus points, but in and of itself mana is just... waste, basicly. It's the excess energy generated by everything... life, motion, etc. Basicly, anything has the innate magical potential to be or do many things... But since things only actualy do or become one thing, most of that potential is wasted. It just sort of floats about, generaly drifting towards one of the ley lines.

"Magic", as such, is the manipulation of this raw potential energy to cause other things to happen.

A good example I give new players is gasoline... You go to a pump, and fill your car. The gasoline is potential. You fill it a bit too much, and some spills out on the ground as you remove the nozel. That's wasted potential. If you formed enough, it would run through the cracks in the pavement and form little rivers and pools. You throw a match on the little pool of gasoline and it bursts into flames. That's magic. You scoop up some of the gasoline and use it to power something else, that's also magic.

Most humans just can't do magic. It's just not possible for them, no matter how much they try. Some humans, however, can see this wasted potential, and can train themselves to do things with it. This rarely manifests "wild" or untrained, but it can. People who are born with the ability to do this, either through training or wild talent, are called she'vano, an ancient word that basicly equates to "child of the gods". The theory (No one knows if it's true) is that the few humans who can use magic were gifted, either by a god or by one of the other races, long ago, to be able to do so. It runs in the blood, but it's not a fixed trait... it can lie dormant for generations, or manifest in every offspring. Among humans, different bloodlines have evolved... The Pernas bloodline is gifted at anything involving fire, for example, while the Irini bloodline is renowned for it's uncanny ability to shapechange - something that's very, very hard to do normaly with magic. Other humans - that is, not she
vano - can't use magic proper, but they can, under certain circumstances, use a form of "low magic"... Rituals and so forth that have been noted to *normaly* have a certain effect, if performed at a certain time, in a certain place, etc. It's not reliable, or quick, but it sort of works.

Other races have different amounts of magic ability... De'shanan are only skilled at certain types of magic, but highly skilled at those types. Wild elves use magicly almost instinctivly, but they can never advance very far or learn very much... a wild elf might know one trick very well, but probably nothing else. High elves and she'vano are almost equal in magical ability, except that the high elves lack the varried bloodlines, and all high elves possess the ability. Dwarves, like De'shanan, are only good at certain types of magic, but they are the undisputed masters at making magic consistant... Dwarves use ritual magic extensivly, and to much better effect, than humans.

As for exactly how people manipulate it... It's a combination of two things. One is the ability to percieve the magic in the first place... except for rituals, you can't do magic if you can't feel the magic to work with. It would be like trying to make perfume if you had no sense of smell, sort of.

The second part is a set of, for lack of a better way of saying it, mental muscles. They just don't exist in non-magic-users.

 

[Dark Eternal]

Ok, this is a little bit complicated.

In my setting, a race called the Sytiri (In their language, their name means "Firstborn". -ed.) believe that all of reality is, basically, a consensual illusion. In their cosmology, the world actually exists on a level beyond perception. The physical world is only a reflection of this true reality. They call the Physical world the "Image of Time", which is in turn reflected from a mystical plane of existance called the "Mirror of Days".

Magic - the arcane and divine magics that non-Sytiri use, anyways - is a crude and illusory art by their standards. What 'Magic' does is change the surface - the "Image of Time" - without actually affecting the source, which lies beyond the Mirror. How exactly magic does this is a subject that the Sytiri only vaguely suspect, but they are certain that it is a weaker and less perfect manifestation of a person's connection to the true level of reality. And of course, nobody has a stronger connection to the true level of reality than the Sytiri do.

If you're following this so far, then I'm doing a better job of explaining than I think I am.

ANYways - the Sytiri have their own kind of 'magic', which they call Shotu, (meaning "will over truth", or "will creates truth" - sytiri to common translations are tricky. -ed.) which allows them to reach through the Mirror of Days, and change the essence of reality itself. They claim this power is proof of their status of decendancy from the Threefold Creator - who created the "Mirror of Days" as well as the "Image of Time".

Other races think all of the above is a load of bs, but it is worth noting that the Shotu powers of the Sytiri completely overrule both arcane and divine magic. So maybe they actually are onto something...

 

[Drawmack]

Dark,
that sounds like a sort of theory of forms alagory of the cave type thing. I like it very nice.

Is there some training the satiri go through for this. Like in Plato's teachings 9 years of math was required to become enlightened?

 

[willpax]

I also use a variant magic system, so this may depart from the norm in some ways:

I start with a simple, unoriginal premise: the cosmos exists at a point of balance between the forces of life and death. Life creates, death devours. Life hopes, death destroys. Life is about learning and knowledge, death about secrets and ignorance.

All living beings create this collective sense of reality that in turn influences the cosmos to create conditions that maintain life. Those who are aware of magic are aware of these forces, their ebbs and flows. The more talented can even redirect these powers in certain ways, although the work is somewhat risky.

To cast a spell is to redirect the life force to cause a change in physical reality. This change will register to all who are sensitive to these forces in the local area. So to use magic is to reveal yourself to all those nearby who are sensitive to magic.

Because magic flows from life, it is morally dangerous. To use magic to destroy or dominate life, or to attempt to change reality to too large a degree, can corrupt the user. This corruption can eventually drive the caster insane (he or she loses grip on reality) or evil (he or she rejects life in favor of death). This tendency makes magicians rather mistrusted and feared in the larger community.

Among the most gifted, there are several philosophical schools related to the use of arcane magic. One school holds that only strength of will is to be treasured, and that the caster must continually push her- or himself in order to transcend limits. Those who go insane are the weak and undeserving, while the strong are the acme of human (or whatever) potential. Another school holds that the caster must do everything possible to minimize corruption, maintaining purity of intention and action and using magic only as a last resort.

 

[Dark Eternal]

Dark,
that sounds like a sort of theory of forms alagory of the cave type thing. I like it very nice.

Is there some training the satiri go through for this. Like in Plato's teachings 9 years of math was required to become enlightened?

You'd better believe it...

The average Sytiri will spend twenty years of their life, on and off, studying the nature of the Image of Time and the Mirror of Days. Those who choose to pursue the racial prestige classes, the Shotu Knight and the Shotu Disciple, can expect to spend as much as a century perfecting the art.

Edit: Truncated sig.

 

[s/LaSH]

Hm. My campaign doesn't really have codified principles (because magic is so primitive - it's the Middle Ages, and nobody knows of any planes beyond Heaven and Hell), but the truth of it is something like this:

Wizards channel elemental magics with the aid of rituals. These magical energies come from parallel planes (the elemental planes), but wizards don't know that - they don't really know why it works, but they know enough of the principles of drawing energy out of nowhere to make up new spells.

Sorcerers channel raw magic from within themselves. Mortal races are very unlikely to have this kind of talent.

Clerics are just like wizards, except they don't channel from the elemental planes; they employ positive energy instead. (The evil ones use negative energy.) There's no need for a god in this equation, I might add, and the priests know it - they employ magic in much the same way as they would employ a nice pen. It doesn't harm their devotion, largely because the formulae for spellcasting has been set up in prayer form.

Everyone has a tiny bit of magical energy (except the throbbing Sorcerers), but it takes training to make it strong enough to open the tiny planar portals that create magical effects.

There's no psionics. If there were, it would be fundamentally similar to sorcery.

 

[Oni]

This is from my Setting submission, for the world I hope to get around to fleshing out someday.

5. Nature of magic
Magic in the world of Üth is a mysterious matter. While there are few practitioners of magic, it is far fewer still that understand its true nature. Before recorded time the gods sacrificed themselves to imprison the alien deity Kylek in the planet. Divine magic draws on the essence that remains of the dead gods. Spirits and powerful creatures, such as the greatest of dragon kind, are able to grant spells to their mortal followers. Weaker spirits do so by bonding with a single mortal, while more powerful creatures can grant their spells to small groups of followers. Arcane magic on the other hand comes from a more sinister source. The Children of Kylek (Illithids) brought it to the races of Üth in secret; it is a manipulation of the awesome power the Sleeping God radiates even in its imprisonment. Because of the unnatural and alien nature of arcane magic the more one delves into its study the more it begins to take its toll. At first the changes are minor, but they are more evident in those who have devoted a lifetime to its study. Regardless of the source, magic-users on Üth are rare because those naturally talented are few and far between and most other people are not able to devote time to the tremendous amount of training needed. All but the most minor of magic items are jealously guarded status symbols, commissioned like the pieces of art they are.



To elaborate some, magic is pattern based. I envisioned wizard spellbooks not being so much complex notes and formulas but rather sets of extremely complex mandela like patterns. By imprinting these patterns into their minds charged with arcane energy they would yield predictable results, when they filled in the final pieces (i.e. the components). Sorcerers were beings that were corrupted by Kyleks taint, and naturely held these patterns in their bodies, being an intrinsic part of their being they are not destroyed by the casting process. Clerical spellcasters also use patterns but they are a different set in tune with the force they work with, and are provided by the creatures they are bound to. Bards are a kind strange case, they pull on both sources of power, but really don't belong to either, and would in this case be a seperate classification of magic.


As you can see it probably still needs some work, but that was the basic idea.