Magic Systems

[Lord Bookwyrm]

I've been thinking about this magic system for a while now. You store an attribute (like weight, strength, memory, etc.) in something, then later you can draw it out again. The difference between this and feruchemy: The more valuable something is, the more you can store in it. For example, something like a diamond or gold could store more than something like a pen or a boot. Also, when tapping (I'm still going to be using feruchemical terms though. It's easier than thinking up my own), the thing holding the attribute blackens and crumbles (you can only store in solid objects). The more valuable something is, the slower it crumbles. Also, when the attribute is stored, it becomes blank. By this I mean that you could store something like a memory and tap something like strength. In other words, you don't have to tap what you stored. However, there is a problem of efficiency. If you store a physical attribute and tap a cognitive attribute, it is less efficient, you don't get as much out of it and the thing you stored in crumbles faster, so it's better to store physical attributes and tap physical attributes and store cognitive attributes and tap cognitive attributes.

[Eagle of the Forest Path]

@Lord Bookworm

The attribute storage as you describe it right now is something of a rip-off, but I guess it depends on what attributes you pick for your system. (If you get rid of 'memory' at least, it will go over a lot better, I think)

I do like the idea of the container's value affecting how the magic affects it, quite a lot actually. Value is relative though, and I think you could have a lot of fun with that.
Market values for one thing. If there's a shortage of leather, the value of boots would go up (compared to gold), so would they become better containers than before the shortage?
Secondly is it only monetary value that you're taking into account, or other types as well?  If a person is particularly attached to an object they would value it more. So would a pen you inherited from your father be a better container than one you bought in a shop, even though objectively their cost is the same?

Conversion between physical/cognitive affecting the crumbling is a good way of preventing the system from becoming overpowered (from attributes becoming "blank"), but be careful to not make it too complicated for a reader to understand easily. I suggest not going into too much detail and avoiding having a plot hinge on this.

[Lord Bookwyrm]

Yeah, I thought it was a bit of a rip off. Maybe I should do something like being able to turn valuable stuff into energy, the more valuable it is, the more you get out of it. You need to speak specific words to do it. It was discovered a few hundred years ago, when the words for kinetic energy were found, with ones for heat and chemical being found a few years later. However, about two decades ago, someone found words for heat that were more efficient, turning value into a lot more energy. Also, you can only convert stuff to energy when touching it. The thing you convert to energy vaporizes after you convert it.

Only one in two hundred people have this ability, and people are 'chosen' randomly. Also, it's how much a person values something, not monetary value, that makes it capable of being converted to energy. Some people have used this to their advantage by training their minds to value things that they are turning into energy. The way this works means that a rich person is actually less efficient than a poor person, since a poor person values things more. As they say, absence breeds affection.

[Lindel]

On 8/10/2017 at 6:07 PM, Wordsmith said:

 

I thought that might be badly worded.

I'll use an example to explain it. So say that you got a paper cut five minutes ago. If you were to use this magic system to reverse time back to before those five minutes your body would go back to that state before then, but those five minutes would be subtracted from the end of your life.

With speeding up time then the body would become older by five minutes, but you would gain five minutes on to your life.

I hope that this makes a bit more sense.

 

Oh, that makes sense. Cool!

[Unlicensed Hemalurgist]

Very interesting ideas!

Edited October 29, 2017 by Unlicensed Hemalurgist