My First Magic System

[+ILuvHats]

This is a world and magic system I’ve been tossing around for a while, and probably the best one I’ve built yet. It’s by no means complete, but I’ve solidified enough of it that it warrants posting, especially because there’s a lot of stuff I’d like advice on. There’ll be a lot of world building, mostly to provide context for the magic users, but the magic is the main focus. Anyways, hope you like it. 

Origin/Historical Background of Magic

Spoiler

Magic users in this world are known as the Burnt. They came into being several centuries ago when a nearly-world ending event lead to their genesis. Essentially, geysers of flame began erupting from the earth. They were particularly concentrated around the western seacoast of the continent, then gradually thinned out until several hundred miles out in the ocean, where lava spewed forth to form a jagged, volcanic rock formation along the seabed which completely surrounded the continent. Now, while the death toll numbered in the millions due to the initial eruptions and the aftermath of spreading fires, the flames coming directly up from the earth died down within seconds. And though global warming was massively accelerated and water levels rose around the world, the loss of lives this caused was still incomparable to the arrival of the Burnt. 

The holes left behind by the geysers drew people into them, kind of like sirens from Greek mythology. The radius of this effect varied based on the size of the hole, and ranged from the size of a football field to a little over a mile in radius. People who descended into the holes, well, nobody’s sure what happenend down there. Many never returned, while others came back babbling lunatics. However, some came back as the Burnt, with no memory of what happened in the fires below, but completely changed. 

I have ideas for three specific classes of Burnt, but two of them haven’t been well fleshed out yet, so all I’ll say about them for now is that one of them managed to conceal themselves and interbreed with normal humans, while the other was eventually hunted to extinction. I’ll be focusing on the third class; the Crepitus (Latin for explosion).

All three classes of Burnt manifested powers in addition to suffering from a range of neurological conditions. The specific disorders they had were different between classes, though pyromania was a common condition among all three. For the Crepitus, these conditions included (among others):

• Pyromania
• Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED), which results in uncontrollable episodes of rage and aggression
• A compulsive obsession with vandalism and the destruction of property

It’s important to note that none of the Burnt are evil. They’re not like Epics; they don’t enjoy pain or fail to have empathy with others. However, it is difficult for them to control themselves in the best of times, and immediately after their transformation is not the best of times, since they’re completely within the grip of their neuroses and have almost no control over their actions. 

Following the catastrophe, which later became known as the Eruption, the Crepitus who were most far gone mentally began by destroying any man-made structures within sight, regardless of the loss of human life. Others who had more control of themselves targeted structures or property that were abandoned so they were less likely to endanger anyone. After a few weeks, most of the first wave managed to break out of the frenzy and regain a semblance of control over themselves. But of course, many people didn’t understand the danger of the holes, and tens of thousands continued to wander into them for decades, producing waves upon waves of Burnt before most of the holes were mapped out and people learned to avoid them. 

By this time, human civilization was mostly in ruins. Some of the Crepitus tried to blend in with refugees fleeing to the east where less geysers had emerged, but sooner or later incidents occurred and they were lynched or driven away. Eventually, hated and shunned by society, the Crepitus began to wander aimlessly, though they could never help eventually returning to civilization, driven as they were to destroy something, anything manmade. After everything was said and done, maybe 70-80% of the population was dead. 

Rules of the Magic System

Spoiler

Now, before fast forwarding to the present day, I’m going to explain the abilities of the Crepitus so you can understand how potentially destructive they can be. Essentially, they can turn objects into explosives. This is done by Priming some material. The process requires the individual to touch the object, with the effect rippling outward from the point of contact. However, the effect ceases at boundaries between different materials. So, if there’s a brick wall, you can only Prime one brick at a time since the rippling effect ceases when it comes into contact with mortar. On the other hand, if two bricks are touching with no mortar between them, the effect transfers from one to the other.  

Though a material has explosive potential after being Primed, there is no way to trigger it, and the effect of Priming it decays rapidly, with the matter losing its potential to release energy within a 20-30 minutes. To allow the material to trigger, the substance must be Sealed, after which the decaying effect slows greatly. It’s a similar process to Priming, requiring contact with the Primed object. However, it is an instantaneous transformation while Priming takes a few seconds to spread a meter, and it can pass between different materials as long as they are both Primed. Although there are technically two different processes needed to prepare a material, they occur fairly simultaneously, so together the process is just called Priming, with the assumption that afterwards it is also immediately Sealed.

Priming is powered using calories gained through food. Obviously, the energy exchange is not a one-to-one ratio, and a lot less calories need to be consumed than would actually equal an explosion. Furthermore, nutrients doesn’t need to be metabolized through normal methods. Any food that is swallowed can be metabolized for use from anywhere between 30 seconds to 10 minutes based on the consumer’s metabolism and how easily digested the food is. However, if there is no food within the digestive tract, stores of fat and eventually muscle will be drawn upon just as if the Crepitus were doing physical activity.

There are four types of materials that can be Primed, each with a different trigger and varying effects upon exploding.

Ceramics

Ceramics are the easiest to use in combat, but they are the weakest explosives of the materials. They are also the material that decays quickest, completely losing their charge within a few hours. The trigger causing ceramics to combust is fracturing. Pick up a ceramic teapot, Prime it, and throw it. Boom. A high percentage of the released energy is released as light instead of thermal energy, so they’re kind of like fireworks, and are often used as weak flashbangs. 

Also note that the power of the explosion is proportional to the difficulty it takes to fracture the ceramic. Porcelain produces a much weaker explosion than silicon carbide. In fact, a solid mass of silicon carbide weighing 50 kg would produce an explosion comparable to a weak nuclear bomb. Good luck fracturing it enough to initiate the reaction though. 

Since ceramics are so commonly used, here’s some examples of how powerful their explosions are. Assuming the material is some kind of stoneware like you might find in mugs:

• a hollow sphere the size of a golf ball often won’t immediately kill anyone even with a direct hit to the torso, but it can cause 2^ndto 3^rddegree burns in a meter radius. It                                          also creates a flash powerful enough to blind passersby for a few seconds. 
• A sphere the size of a baseball can kill anyone within a meter and creates a flash powerful enough to cause permanent damage to vision. 
• One the size of a basketball has a lethal range of 5 or so meters and anyone within sight who fails to close their eyes or look away goes permanently blind. After this point, increases in size stop creating more powerful flashes, and the energy is instead primarily directed towards thermal energy.

Biological Materials

This class includes anything directly derived from living organisms. And strangely enough, artificially synthesized chemicals or substances used in biological processes do not fall under this category. The material in question must come directly from a plant, animal, fungus, whatever. Also, no living matter can be Primed. Matter derived from an animal/human is considered dead fairly immediately. So, if someone loses an arm, you could just pick it up and use it. Or, for a less gristly example, fingernail clippings can be used right after being clipped. For plants/fungus though, the material must be separated from the organism for a few hours before being considered “dead.” So while decaying leaves or branches on the ground can be used, you can’t just rip a twig of a tree and Prime it.

The trigger for biological material is sunlight, or rather, the UV radiation from the sunlight. The explosive reaction doesn’t immediately occur upon exposure to sunlight, requiring time for the rays to diffuse throughout the material. The time for diffusion is based on the size of the object and its density, with a leaf triggering within seconds of exposure while wooden boards may last up to an hour or so. The power of the explosion is also proportional to the density of the material, and biological materials in general release several times more energy than common ceramics do (I’m not counting crazy hard ceramics like diamond). One quirk of the explosions is that they release massive quantities of smoke, more than if the material were simply combusted.

Oh yeah, and it generally takes biological matter a few weeks until its charge fully decays. 

Metals

While not nearly as easy to trigger as the previous two examples, metals have the most potential for creating magitech since their charge doesn’t decay significantly for decades, even centuries. There are two different triggers for metal; magnetic fields and electric charge. The power of the explosion is incredibly diverse, and the power is directly related to the electrical conductivity of the metal, plus the amount of voltage passing through it. This means semiconductors produce very weak reactions. Meanwhile, metals like silver, gold, copper, and platinum can create enormous explosions when high voltage is applied. 

Plastics

Little is known about polymers. In this world, they have only recently been invented and have seen little commercial use. Their explosive power seems to be somewhere between that of biological matter and metals, and the trigger is contact with any liquid. The rate of decay is currently unknown. 

Edit: Actually, I may make polymers more established and widely used than I previously thought. Idk. We'll see.

Null Materials

Any materials falling outside of these four categories is considered null. They cannot themselves be Primed. Other than limiting the rippling effect of Priming, they don’t interfere with the process in anyway. Note however that certain types of exotic materials have yet to be discovered that would be considered a new usable class.

Edit: I want to make this section a bit more clear. Material classes are not divided by composition/structure. Ceramics in particular can include nearly every element and any level of crystallinity. Materials are put into a class based on properties and the context of their use. Many metallic oxides are considered ceramics when purified, such as alumina. BUT, when a coat of metallic oxide forms on the outer part of a metal, it is NOT regarded as a ceramic but instead is null, because it isn’t intended for use as a ceramic. It is a byproduct, not the result of deliberate refinement. Other oxides that are considered minerals by themselves, like lime or granite, are considered null. BUT, when incorporated into a ceramic, they are NOT considered null, and are treated as a ceramic, because together, combined with the other substances, the material displays properties aligning with ceramics.  It’s all about context (and I hate to say it, but I gotta rip off of Brandon and say “perception”).

Though context/perception make it blurry, there are a number of substances which are null by default, since they can’t even be regarded as a “material” (i.e. liquids and gases). Water, salts, various solutions, stuff like this is null. Just use common sense and you should be okay.

Something else I want to address; there are borderline cases. For example, diamond is a borderline ceramic. Under some standards and applications, it can be considered so, but many don’t regard it as a true ceramic. Under the rules of this magic system, each of these materials must be taken by case-by-case basis. In this case, I would classify diamond as a ceramic instead of as null.

Interference

There is interference in materials that are a homogeneous mixture of one or more classes. So metal alloys wouldn’t present a problem, but metal-ceramic mixtures would. Note that null materials do not contribute to interference. Essentially, the combination of materials creates a sort of feedback, resulting in immediate combustion often resulting in the death of the Crepitus as well as bystanders. The line between homogeneity and heterogeneity is not easily defined. Essentially, anything that can be immediately recognized as a combination of materials would not count. So, a pile of metal pellets and shattered ceramic-ware would not produce feedback. However, a cotton-polyester blended shirt would, though the mixing is by no means on a microscopic level. Also, the blend needs to be relatively balanced. All materials are impure on some level. An impurity needs to be present in excess of ~5 percent to produce interference, so the carbon in steel is not present in high enough quantities to be a problem.

Edit: Avoiding Broken Mechanics

Lastly, I’m adding temperature constraints to the magic system. Materials outside the range of -40 to 60 degrees Celsius cannot retain a charge and cannot be Primed. Room temperature (23 degrees Celsius) is considered the optimal temperature. There is very little drop off in performance quality until within 20 degrees of the boundaries. At this point, the energy released by the Primed material decreases until reaching zero at the boundary temperature. The reason I’m putting this in is because I realized I had a broken mechanic. Metallic superconductors have no electrical resistance. The energy released by metals is proportional to the electrical conductivity. Ergo, UNLIMITED POWER. Since I don’t want anybody to be able to blow up the planet by Priming a superconductor, I’m ensuring the magic system can only be used at temperatures in which superconductors are inoperable. 

 

Aaaaannndd, considering how long this post has gotten, there is no way I'm going to talk about the current state of the world and how magic falls into it. I have enough to say to equal everything I've already posted. I'll probably post a part 2 eventually to cover all of that. Instead, here's some miscellaneous information and clarifications that I'm too lazy to incorporate into the rest of the essay (because that's what it's become; an essay ).

Miscellaneous Information

Spoiler

• I don’t think I made it clear in my discussion about the Eruption. I mentioned that the density of geysers that erupted spread out from a center point until several hundred miles into the ocean. At this point, an underwater fissure completely surrounding the continent spewed forth magma. This formed jagged formations as the lava cooled, BUT the formations do not come close to above the surface. However, even though the fissure was covered up, it draws people toward it who come too near. So, if any ships that come to close to this border, the entire crew will dive underwater and drown as they try to get to the covered fissure. The continent is effectively sealed off.

 

• The Burnt are immune to the call of the geysers after becoming Burnt.

 

• Geysers periodically collapse, and new ones appear. This means that the maps need to be continually updated, and plenty of people still fall victim to the geysers (wow, I really need an official word other than geyser).

 

• For those of you who are wondering, the explosions of Primed materials are actually caused by a magical sort of fission. And energy is conserved, even though a lot more energy should be released than actually is. There are hidden mechanics here, muahaha.

 

• Names, names, names. I’m bad at naming stuff. If you have ideas for official names for certain aspects of the world, please let me know. Especially for geysers. They’re not really geysers anymore, now are they. Plus, I’m not sure if I like the sound of “geyser.” Maybe something more sinister. A name better than Eruption is also on the table. Really, "Burnt" and "Crepitus" are the only names I have any attachment to. 

 

• A quick description of what the geysers look like, in case you were wondering how the hell people can climb down them and climb back out of them. Many of them come out of the ground at a slant, and the sides are rough enough to make climbing easy. Also, there’s an orange glow coming from deep within them that’s not noticeable during the day, but can be seen from a few dozen yards away at night.

 

• You can probably tell I was trying to make the trigger for each material class something that’s normally strongly associated with the properties of that material. Ceramics are known for being exceptionally brittle, biological materials and sunlight duh, and of course metals are excellent conductors. However, the connection for plastics is a bit less obvious. The angle I was going for is that many polymers are formed through a process called interfacial polymerization, where contact between two immiscible phases (often liquids) provides an interface for synthesis. Nylon is one of the most famous products of this type of reaction. Anyways, contact with liquid was the best trigger I could think of that was both practical and had a connection to plastics. If you can think of a better one, by all means let me know.  

 

• Lastly, I just wanted to address the question as to why the Crepitus didn’t kill themselves off considering how volatile their powers are. Well, any Burnt who are first generation, meaning they themselves entered the holes left by the eruption, have an instinctual understanding of their powers. Their descendants, on the other hand…

 

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by ILuvHats

[Karger]

32 minutes ago, ILuvHats said:

Any materials falling outside of these four categories is considered null. They cannot themselves be Primed. Other than limiting the rippling effect of Priming, they don’t interfere with the process in anyway. Note however that certain types of exotic materials have yet to be discovered that would be considered a new usable class.

Expand this.  The limitations of the magic system are important to your world both socially and economically.  People in world are also going to be extremely interested in this.  What kind of materials are null?  Why?  Are there commonalities?

35 minutes ago, ILuvHats said:

An impurity needs to be present in excess of ~5 percent to produce interference, so the carbon in steel is not present in high enough quantities to be a problem.

Depends on the type of steel. 

Great magic system.  Look forward to hearing more about it.

[+ILuvHats]

3 hours ago, Karger said:

Depends on the type of steel. 

There's steel with greater than 5% carbon content?! Wow, I had no idea. That alloy's gotta be brittle. 

3 hours ago, Karger said:

Expand this.  The limitations of the magic system are important to your world both socially and economically.  People in world are also going to be extremely interested in this.  What kind of materials are null?  Why?  Are there commonalities?

Good idea. I'll add some more details to my post.

[Karger]

2 minutes ago, ILuvHats said:

There's steel with greater than 5% carbon content?! Wow, I had no idea. That alloy's gotta be brittle. 

Alloy steel is steel that is alloyed with a variety of elements in total amounts between 1.0% and 50% by weight to improve its mechanical properties. Alloy steels are broken down into two groups: low alloy steels and high alloy steels. The difference between the two is disputed. Smith and Hashemi define the difference at 4.0%, while Degarmo, et al., define it at 8.0%.^[1][2] Most commonly, the phrase "alloy steel" refers to low-alloy steels.

Strictly speaking, every steel is an alloy, but not all steels are called "alloy steels". The simplest steels are iron (Fe) alloyed with carbon (C) (about 0.1% to 1%, depending on type). However, the term "alloy steel" is the standard term referring to steels with other alloying elements added deliberately in addition to the carbon. Common alloyants include manganese (the most common one), nickel, chromium, molybdenum, vanadium, silicon, and boron. Less common alloyants include aluminium, cobalt, copper, cerium, niobium, titanium, tungsten, tin, zinc, lead, and zirconium.

2 minutes ago, ILuvHats said:

Good idea. I'll add some more details to my post.

Read Sanderson's laws on making magic systems if you have not already.

[+ILuvHats]

5 minutes ago, Karger said:

Read Sanderson's laws on making magic systems if you have not already.

I've read them before, but its been a while. Might be time for a refresher.

[Lunu’anaki]

I really enjoy the concept of priming explosives as a magic system. Is this the only magic system on your world was there something before this disaster struck?

You've got some good cost in there with the potential to wither away if someone gets too trigger happy. and speaking of triggers... the way each material requires a different triggering mechanism is really interesting and I think you chose some good ones. Those will be fun for you to play around with while writing!

[+ILuvHats]

7 hours ago, Lunu’anaki said:

I really enjoy the concept of priming explosives as a magic system. Is this the only magic system on your world was there something before this disaster struck?

There wasn't any magic before the disaster. It was the origin of magic, on this planet at least .

Edit: Don't worry, I'm not gonna go all space opera. The story will be mostly limited to this one continent. Suffice to say, magic always existed in the universe, but the catastrophe is when it first came to this world.

Edited November 6, 2019 by ILuvHats

[Lunu’anaki]

48 minutes ago, ILuvHats said:

There wasn't any magic before the disaster. It was the origin of magic, on this planet at least .

Awesome. I'm getting Magic Mad Max vibes and that just screams awesomeness to me!!

51 minutes ago, ILuvHats said:

Edit: Don't worry, I'm not gonna go all space opera. The story will be mostly limited to this one continent. Suffice to say, magic always existed in the universe, but the catastrophe is when it first came to this world.

Hey! We're all fans of the Cosmere here. Space Opera is always a good idea  lmao

[mathiau]

On 21/10/2019 at 0:01 AM, Ooklidean Geometry said:

There's steel with greater than 5% carbon content?! Wow, I had no idea. That alloy's gotta be brittle.

Well actually no, there is steal with more than 5% metallic additions, for example your knife contain around 15% chromium. But in term of carbon you cannot have more than 2% carbon, otherwise it's called cast Iron.

Tho these were the mass percentage, if you decide to use the number of atoms instead then carbon can go up to 8,7% and you will have 5% carbon atom as soon as you have 1,1% carbon mass, a lot of steel are under that limit (most stainless steels for example) but be careful to check

[+ILuvHats]

1 hour ago, mathiau said:

Well actually no, there is steal with more than 5% metallic additions, for example your knife contain around 15% chromium. But in term of carbon you cannot have more than 2% carbon, otherwise it's called cast Iron.

Tho these were the mass percentage, if you decide to use the number of atoms instead then carbon can go up to 8,7% and you will have 5% carbon atom as soon as you have 1,1% carbon mass, a lot of steel are under that limit (most stainless steels for example) but be careful to check

See that’s what I thought. I didn’t think there were any steel alloys with excess of 2-3% carbon content. Also, thanks for the info about content by percent volume. My knowledge on metallurgy is a bit rusty (pun intended), and I get most of my info from the occasional phase diagram for steel, which are of course by percent mass.

[1st of Lunch]

On 10/20/2019 at 5:04 PM, Ookla the Prolific said:

Read Sanderson's laws on making magic systems if you have not already.

I would like to read these for a system I am building. Where might I find them?

[+ILuvHats]

1 hour ago, 1st of Lunch said:

I would like to read these for a system I am building. Where might I find them?

They should come up if you look up Sanderson’s laws for writing on google. I think there’s also videos on YouTube where Brandon talks about them in a lecture.

[Karger]

1 hour ago, 1st of Lunch said:

I would like to read these for a system I am building. Where might I find them?

They are on his website somewhere(or were).

[1st of Lunch]

Thanks Guys!

[CahiraCelosial]

I love the idea. It is built so in depth, and you've thought of most everything. I had an idea, that when the burnt come out, they start going by a different name, because they are, essentially, someone new. For names, maybe you could incorporate ceniza, the Spanish word for ash, maybe as a character name or lava dome name, or maybe a different type of the burnt could be 'the molten.' Maybe for transforming different types of material have different names, like '___ priming.' Maybe 'fracture priming' or something like that for ceramics? Wow, I just realized how dumb that sounded. Sorry! For a different name for the eruption, maybe the 'first burning?' Just an idea, but I thought it sounded kinda cool.

[+ILuvHats]

On 12/20/2019 at 11:09 PM, CahiraCelosial said:

I love the idea. It is built so in depth, and you've thought of most everything. I had an idea, that when the burnt come out, they start going by a different name, because they are, essentially, someone new. For names, maybe you could incorporate ceniza, the Spanish word for ash, maybe as a character name or lava dome name, or maybe a different type of the burnt could be 'the molten.' Maybe for transforming different types of material have different names, like '___ priming.' Maybe 'fracture priming' or something like that for ceramics? Wow, I just realized how dumb that sounded. Sorry! For a different name for the eruption, maybe the 'first burning?' Just an idea, but I thought it sounded kinda cool.

Thanks for the input! I think I'll steal 'The First Burning' as a name (it sounds pretty cool). I thought I'd let you know since I'll be making a post pretty soon where I use the term.