First impressions on a magic system

[Ace of Hearts]

Hey, everyone. I'm pretty new to the forums so I figured that I might as well post something here.  Gotta put myself out there somehow, right?

I'm thinking about magic systems for a book that I eventually plan to write. A magic system that I'm thinking about revolves around two mechanics that are quite broad, so broad that I'm a little worried. I have a specific direction that I want to take with these mechanics, but I want to see what impressions people have when I mention concepts that I have. These two concepts are:

-Mages function as spirits after death and can possess other people (including other mages). Once the spirit of a mage possessed a body, it cannot leave until the body dies.

-Mages can manipulate crystal structures of solids and can absorb magical energy found in special fantasy glow crystals.

-The general setting of this story is a fantasy land similar to America or Britain in WWII (nationalism, struggle against fascism, fate of the world on the line, all that stuff)

If you saw a book that revolved around this type of magic, would you be excited? Skeptical? What would you expect to see from these mechanics? What would you want to see? What would you want not to see? How do you think that the magic would interact with a culture similar to WWII America or Britain? In the spoiler below, I lay out my thoughts in more detail, but I'm hoping to get first impressions on broad concepts to see what direction people would expect me to head in and see I'm missing something that people would want covered.  If you do look at the spoiler, perhaps you could form impressions of your own first and then see if you are satisfied by what I came up with?

Spoiler

Spirit possession:

This one's planned to be more of my "soft" magic system, as Brandon describes it. It's overpowered, and it's used mostly against the main characters. In the past, empires were ruled by mages who would possess another body whenever they died, but society has largely come to an impasse with the world of the dead. Mages are allowed to possess only convicted criminals, although there are still a few rogue mages possessing "innocent" people. In the story, the main character is imprisoned because she opposed a rich family and they pulled strings in court to get her locked away. She fakes being possessed by a mage and escapes. The dead mages who possess the living are recruited for their magical expertise in the war against the fascists, and they form their own culture and prefer not to affiliate with the living.

Crystal manipulation:

This one's more of my "hard" magic system that the characters use as a tool, although it feels broader than the first. Rearranging or changing crystal structures requires the input of energy consistent with the lattice energy to break chemical bonds (although in many cases, this process becomes self-catalyzing). Crystal is used as a common building block, allowing for the creation of massive mechs that can be piloted by mages.  Some crystal structures are seen as fancy and reflecting of status (diamond) while others are more practical and are utilized more by industry (quartz and iron). The fascist scientists have found a way to replace many of human's internal organs with crystals and allow the body to function off of energy from glow crystals instead of food. The energy from glow crystals can also be harnessed to form laser guns used by the general military.

This one is harder for me because I don't really know a lot about crystal chemistry (I'm currently going off of gen chem knowledge) and I feel like I'm only going halfway with the whole science bit.  

Thank you for reading through my post!  

 

Edited March 23, 2017 by Wisps of Aether

[Adamo-son-son-Kelsier]

Many things to say.

it is very broad, that could be a good thing though. Idk I am not a writer. It is cool enough to get me interested in following where this goes and to get you an upvote

[Edgedancer]

So my immediate question is what leverage people could possibly have against a bunch of ghost taking them over and presumably only growing in numbers to make them stop taking what they want? Especially if there doesn't appear to be a sure fire way to check for posession, seeing how it can be faked.

On that note, ghost spies taking over key political figures could probably break havok fairly easily.

[StrikerEZ]

It sounds really cool, and my only question was already asked by Edgedancer. Also...since they're mages...what exactly are the doing, in terms of magic. Is it just the crystal stuff? Or is there other magic they use?

[The One Who Connects]

As an example to add onto what Striker is asking, a book that recently caught my interest via the magic was Three Dark Crowns. Basically, there are 3 "big" types of magics, each of the main characters has one type, and the back blurb described the magics in about a sentence and a half each.

It drew me in because it made the magic sound interesting in so few words, but still left it open to expand on.

My worry with crystal science is that you've made it too complex to easily sum up and catch a casual readers interest, interesting premise or not.

[Ace of Hearts]

On 3/23/2017 at 2:53 AM, Edgedancer said:

So my immediate question is what leverage people could possibly have against a bunch of ghost taking them over and presumably only growing in numbers to make them stop taking what they want? Especially if there doesn't appear to be a sure fire way to check for posession, seeing how it can be faked.

On that note, ghost spies taking over key political figures could probably break havok fairly easily.

Ah, that's a good point, and one that really got me thinking.  The truth is, the people really don't have much leverage over these ghosts. The ghosts' promise to only possess criminals convicted of serious crimes is a pretty new thing for the world. The ghosts do have a bit of motivation to keep their end of the deal, since most of them didn't like it when a few of the most powerful ghosts basically took over the world and managed to enslave even the other ghosts. These ghosts can't leave the bodies they possess until, and they feel the same pain and misery that the body does during its period of possession.

But I think that point could actually play a key role in the message of the story. Both sides of the war want to industrialize and homogenize by maintaining strict order. The failure of the justice system to convict true criminals and the inability of governments to ultimately control these ghosts can attest to the fact that much of the order and justice under intense nationalism is an illusion. That can provide a weak point in society for the main character to attack. 

And yes, ghost spies could take over key political figures, but that would be morally wrong. Nobody would dare break the rules regarding the role of ghosts in society, right?  (The people in the society don't have the same perspective that we do. Many of them truly believe that the ghosts obey the rules and only control bad people).

On 3/23/2017 at 3:35 PM, StrikerEZ said:

It sounds really cool, and my only question was already asked by Edgedancer. Also...since they're mages...what exactly are the doing, in terms of magic. Is it just the crystal stuff? Or is there other magic they use?

Mostly crystal stuff. They can also use the power in energized crystals to do some vague  things (mostly woven into the technology and used by common soldiers... like pew pew laser guns), but the more stereotypical magic source of the energized crystals mostly function as an industrial power source. 

13 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

As an example to add onto what Striker is asking, a book that recently caught my interest via the magic was Three Dark Crowns. Basically, there are 3 "big" types of magics, each of the main characters has one type, and the back blurb described the magics in about a sentence and a half each.

It drew me in because it made the magic sound interesting in so few words, but still left it open to expand on.

My worry with crystal science is that you've made it too complex to easily sum up and catch a casual readers interest, interesting premise or not.

Ah, I wouldn't dump most of what I explained to you on the reader. Hopefully most of it is intuitive (it takes energy to move crystals around, and some crystals take more energy to make than others) while just happening to correspond to "actual" science. Most of what I would talk about with crystals is them piloting crystal mech suits and crafting crystal structures as armor/weapons. You know, standard sci-fi/fantasy weapons that sound cool while operating under at least a little bit of science. 

[Yezrien]

On 3/25/2017 at 0:20 AM, Wisps of Aether said:

Ah, that's a good point, and one that really got me thinking.  The truth is, the people really don't have much leverage over these ghosts. The ghosts' promise to only possess criminals convicted of serious crimes is a pretty new thing for the world. The ghosts do have a bit of motivation to keep their end of the deal, since most of them didn't like it when a few of the most powerful ghosts basically took over the world and managed to enslave even the other ghosts. These ghosts can't leave the bodies they possess until, and they feel the same pain and misery that the body does during its period of possession.

But I think that point could actually play a key role in the message of the story. Both sides of the war want to industrialize and homogenize by maintaining strict order. The failure of the justice system to convict true criminals and the inability of governments to ultimately control these ghosts can attest to the fact that much of the order and justice under intense nationalism is an illusion. That can provide a weak point in society for the main character to attack. 

And yes, ghost spies could take over key political figures, but that would be morally wrong. Nobody would dare break the rules regarding the role of ghosts in society, right?  (The people in the society don't have the same perspective that we do. Many of them truly believe that the ghosts obey the rules and only control bad people).

This is all really interesting. But I have this recommendation: Remember Brandon's 2nd Law! The powers of a magic system are less interesting than its limits.

The whole ghost-possession system would be a lot more interesting if it had more limits and constrictions. It seems a little absurd that people would just trust ghosts to obey the rules -- especially if ghosts once took over the world. That would probably make people a little jaded. So why not say that we DO have some leverage over the ghosts? And I think there are two good ways to do that.

First, like Edgedancer said, there really should be a litmus test. Some simple test we can perform to identify a possessed person. Maybe it's a scanning device, like the Voight-Kampff machine. Maybe it's a substance that glows on contact with possessed people. Maybe it's a oijaa board. The point is that possessed people can be identified and dealt with. And, of course, important politicians and military leaders are given this test every day. That'll provide a sense of security for everyone involved -- and, more importantly, it sets up an epic twist: Someone's figured out a way to fool the test! Secutity? Gone. Stakes? Raised. All bets? Off.

Second, there should probably be a way to either kill or imprison these ghosts. That way, the ghost characters will have something to lose -- stakes! -- which makes them more interesting. Also, if ghosts can't be killed or imprisoned, then the worldwide ghost population will only go up, and every ghost that ever lived will still be hanging around, complicating the story, including those ghosts that took over the world. (Which would also make a pretty cool twist: we thought the evil tyrant ghosts were all captured and executed, but one of them escaped, and he's been stalking the world ever since! And he's been every great villain of the last century!)  

(Also, on a more general note, there are certain questions you have to deal with whenever ghosts are involved. Aside from abstract values like morality and patriotism, what motivation does a ghost have?  What do they want? What do they have to gain? Can they eventually move on to the afterlife like regular dead folk? Or is the life of a ghost basically just eternity in Limbo?)

Edited April 8, 2017 by Belzedar