Magical theory

[Evil_Lawyer]

When I saw this I thought this would be an Ars Magica thread which has a specific skill CALLED magic theory. This skill is the uberskill when dealing with magic.

Magic in Ars works on the basis of pre-newtonian phsyics and pre-coppernican cosmology.

magic has 10 froms (from fire to animals, plants or magic iteself) and 5 techniques (creation-destruction, change without moving, motion without change and perception).

There are levels of matter Earth, water, air and finally fire then into the celestial realms such as the lunar sphere and the realm of fixed stars. Energy is drawn from ambient energies in the universe.

A fireball is only a fireball because the whim of the caster wishes it so, things normally take the form determined for them by god and therefore doing things contra to the natural order become harder.

A

[Runjikol]

There's a lot of good ides so far. I'll throw my newts' eyes into the cauldron.

I've quite enjoyed Steven Erikson's series and the magic of the Warrens within. Also casters within that series can draw on massive power with great personal expense and I recall scenes of some "high-mages" erupting with wounds when they cast particularly grand spells.

It makes me think magic would be good to be tied to an 'aspect' and is thus themed as well as constrained by that 'aspect'.
So if one was a shadow aspected mage then all their magic is tied to shadows and what is culturally associated.

I also like the idea that faith-based magic is more about the caster's relationship with the "thing" they have faith in. So a measure of that relationship might be useful to draw on to gain miracles minor and grandiose. It might be called Dedication, Piety, Grace, etc.

My personal preference is that some studies of magic can actually achieve anything: the limitations are the skill of the caster, in making what they want happen, and the amount of power they can a) gather, and b) control without harm. A player would be able to cast any kind of spell they want but the rub is in how potent they can make the spell and what it costs them. A risk-based system would be very nice with this: ie, risk fatigue, risk wounds, risk sanity, risk soul, etc. The greater the risk the greater the potency of the spell. Mechanically it would likely require a degree-of-success mechanic. I think this would be the only way of casting in an expedient manner, ie. rather quickly. If a caster could not do this or is unwilling then they have to resort to ritual, ingredients, runes, aligning stars & planets, etc.

[BubbaBrown]

I always liked the idea of using extra-dimensional "bacteria", "viruses", and "organisms" as the means for magic. I was inspired by an anime called "Mushi-shi", the game series "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.", and the short story "Roadside Picnic". A being not bound by typical axises of time and space could perform a lot of magical things. And if the beings are shy and barely show themselves into the magic user's perception... you've got a element of mystery there. I've been designing a whole system for magic that makes use of these "critters" to facilitate "magical" effects... which are simply really strange manipulation of physics through avenues and means the "mages" are unable to perceive or comprehend.

Being able to jump around time could allow a "critter" to collect a trace amount of heat from all these points of time to concentrate it on one particular moment to create a fire blast. "Critters" that are attracted and react to sonic vibrations can be coaxed by "magical" phrases. Some "critters" might be attracted and choose to live in certain materials warping them to their preference, hence cause materials to have weird properties. The simpler the "critter" the more likely it is to behave, while more complicated "critters" will sometimes not cooperate.

I'm finding it to be a good blend and give a lot of flexibility. It still needs work in the statistical side of things.

[mahatmazero]

[Runjikol]

Great post mahatmazero. Those are great ideas and some colourful terms; Zen-calculus-mantra... that's very nice.

I may use those as I put in the many hours of work to make a magic system that can cater to different types of magic - and each magic type uses a different game-mechanic.

[tygertyger]

[Age of Fable]

Sufficiently elaborated magic is indistinguishable from science fiction.

[Evil_Lawyer]

I have to repeat...great post mahatmazero and not completely dissimilar to something our group postulated on a while back about what IS magic.

We concieved that magic is a universal force which is present in all things much like heat or electromagnetism, but is at a tangental plane to us such as a 5th Dimensional thing expressed in 3 dimensional space and in order to truely understand and harness said power, which can transact any sort of process in the natural world simply by altering things on the 5th dimensional axis. However in order to do this the human mind needs forcibly re-educated to percieve the 4th and 5th Dimensions.

of Course this led to an arguement about what would a 5th demension object look like in 3 dimensional space, and that a photo is a 3D object in 2D space and a Klien Jar is a 4D object in 3D space (And that I am not in one of my mates Klien hats).

But if we can get our head around this, we may have a plan.

A

[Age of Fable]

I think Empire of the Petal Throne has a similar idea: 'demons' are distant from the main world along a 4th or 5th direction.

[Kaiisaxo]