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Magic Meta-Principles


Zachary Holbrook

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A few years ago, I read The Way of Kings, and my brain exploded. That was when I began to grow really passionate about writing-- I thought, "This is awesome. The world needs more books like it."

I set about designing my own Cosmere-esque storytelling universe. But as happens when you're only fourteen and trying to plot out an entire career of writing, my early ideas were all rip-offs of Brandon. I wanted different magic systems, all governed by one framework-- which basically consisted of what I understood about the rules governing Investiture. Eventually I realized my 'mirror realm' was a slightly altered Shadesmar and that all my ideas for magic systems were based off the same principles Brandon uses.

But I want to create a body of original work, not fan fiction. I gave up on developing a unifying theory of magic for my universe for a while and devoted myself to writing good stories. Now, with a novel draft and several shorter works under my belt, I want to return to the universe-level, to develop some ideas for my world as a whole and gain a better understanding of which stories I want to tell in it.

I've brainstormed a couple of meta-principles:

-Teleporting. Different magic systems use different fuels to make you vanish and instantly appear in another place. In order to teleport, however, you have to 'ride' along your emotional connection to another person. That is, the deeper your relationship with another, the more mutual love and understanding you have, the easier it is for you to teleport to that person's side, regardless of distance. 

-Colors. One magic system uses stained glass in various colors, another flower petals, but the colors have the same effect. Inverse colors are the opposite of each other, i.e, red increases energy, making objects warmer and people more eager to act, whereas blue decreases energy, dropping temperatures and making people calmer and more willing to think things through.

What other unique ideas could be used to tie together several magic systems?

 

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On 12/3/2020 at 3:49 PM, Zachary Holbrook said:

A few years ago, I read The Way of Kings, and my brain exploded. That was when I began to grow really passionate about writing-- I thought, "This is awesome. The world needs more books like it."

I set about designing my own Cosmere-esque storytelling universe. But as happens when you're only fourteen and trying to plot out an entire career of writing, my early ideas were all rip-offs of Brandon. I wanted different magic systems, all governed by one framework-- which basically consisted of what I understood about the rules governing Investiture. Eventually I realized my 'mirror realm' was a slightly altered Shadesmar and that all my ideas for magic systems were based off the same principles Brandon uses.

But I want to create a body of original work, not fan fiction. I gave up on developing a unifying theory of magic for my universe for a while and devoted myself to writing good stories. Now, with a novel draft and several shorter works under my belt, I want to return to the universe-level, to develop some ideas for my world as a whole and gain a better understanding of which stories I want to tell in it.

I've brainstormed a couple of meta-principles:

-Teleporting. Different magic systems use different fuels to make you vanish and instantly appear in another place. In order to teleport, however, you have to 'ride' along your emotional connection to another person. That is, the deeper your relationship with another, the more mutual love and understanding you have, the easier it is for you to teleport to that person's side, regardless of distance. 

-Colors. One magic system uses stained glass in various colors, another flower petals, but the colors have the same effect. Inverse colors are the opposite of each other, i.e, red increases energy, making objects warmer and people more eager to act, whereas blue decreases energy, dropping temperatures and making people calmer and more willing to think things through.

What other unique ideas could be used to tie together several magic systems?

 

Interesting! Song could work really well too, and create for some really fun fusions and first contacts. 

This is me throwing stuff against the wall, but what if perception was a key to how things work as well? How tragic would it be for a person to try and warp to their partner, only discover they can't because their partner loathes them? Or there's a secret society of those who are tone-deaf or color-blind can use the magic in really cool world-breaking ways, because they can reach places and do things that were previously thought impossible? (I.e., Purple makes people more depressed (drawing from Green Lantern here), and someone was put in a "blue room" to keep them calm, then this red-yellow colorblind person can use the blue in the room as purple because that's how they see it.)

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Yeah, changing magic based on perception is cool. BUT if I want to be different from Brandon, maybe I should make it relevant that perception DOESN’T matter. 

One idea I had was making future-telling work differently. Rather than seeing possible futures, you see certain key events that will happen in the future regardless of the choices you make. But the way in which that event comes about could be changed as a result of decision stemming from the future-sight

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Maybe certain shapes hold importance, such as triangles are associated with strength, circles with infinity, etc. That would be cool.

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Big part is how assessable the power is, because depending on how powerful one can become, the rarity of the ability makes one seem more powerful it it has fewer with that power rather than everyone having it. A great example is Mistborn, where Mistborn are fairly rare and therefore carry more weight and power behind, and SA, where the radients are technically powerful than Mistborn but because of ho common the ability is, it carries fair less weight. 

Another example is superspeed. The flash is seen as incredibly overpowered because of how fast he can move, but if it wasn't uncommon for people to have his power, superspeed would lose a lot of weight and be easily counterable

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On 12/3/2020 at 11:49 PM, Zachary Holbrook said:

A few years ago, I read The Way of Kings, and my brain exploded. That was when I began to grow really passionate about writing-- I thought, "This is awesome. The world needs more books like it."

I set about designing my own Cosmere-esque storytelling universe. But as happens when you're only fourteen and trying to plot out an entire career of writing, my early ideas were all rip-offs of Brandon. I wanted different magic systems, all governed by one framework-- which basically consisted of what I understood about the rules governing Investiture. Eventually I realized my 'mirror realm' was a slightly altered Shadesmar and that all my ideas for magic systems were based off the same principles Brandon uses.

But I want to create a body of original work, not fan fiction. I gave up on developing a unifying theory of magic for my universe for a while and devoted myself to writing good stories. Now, with a novel draft and several shorter works under my belt, I want to return to the universe-level, to develop some ideas for my world as a whole and gain a better understanding of which stories I want to tell in it.

I've brainstormed a couple of meta-principles:

-Teleporting. Different magic systems use different fuels to make you vanish and instantly appear in another place. In order to teleport, however, you have to 'ride' along your emotional connection to another person. That is, the deeper your relationship with another, the more mutual love and understanding you have, the easier it is for you to teleport to that person's side, regardless of distance. 

-Colors. One magic system uses stained glass in various colors, another flower petals, but the colors have the same effect. Inverse colors are the opposite of each other, i.e, red increases energy, making objects warmer and people more eager to act, whereas blue decreases energy, dropping temperatures and making people calmer and more willing to think things through.

What other unique ideas could be used to tie together several magic systems?

 

 

This is a similar attitude to mine, though I initially started with the Wheel of Time and The Chronicles of Narnia, with Brandon being a later influence :-P I applaud your approach :-)

Something I am doing, which might be helpful for you also, is to list the types of things you want to be possible (which can also include the types of things you don't want to be possible, such as time travel being able to change the past, or conversely time travel being unable to form ontological loops), and work from that. If we take that approach, lets examine the starting examples you have mentioned. You have already mentioned teleportation grounded in emotions and colours used consistently across systems to affect energy, temperature, and emotion. Assuming that all teleportation is fundamentally the same mechanism, with only the fuel changing, and colours having a consistent effect, might I suggest the following:

  • Anne McCaffrey covered the idea of the three Ts, being teleportation, telepathy, and telekinesis, and in later books of the Dragonriders of Pern she used this to let characters realise the dragons would possibly possess telekinesis because they already had the first two, with - mild spoilers - teleportation also allowing time travel. You already have teleportation tied to emotion - so lets explore possible telepathic and telekinetic abilities. You mentioned love for teleportation. Then you can either make love the emotion needed for the others, or two other emotions (love-hate, sad-happy, surprise-attention, disgust-trust)* for the others, or use will and intellect for the other two.
    • So, using love for both - or love and hate being equally effective
      • can read the mind of someone you love or who loves you, and project thoughts into the mind of someone you love or who loves you
      • physically move an item if you care about it enough with telekinesis
    • Using different emotions for both
      • you can sense other's emotions if they make you happy or sad
      • physically move an item if it disgusts you, so only able to throw things if you feel a strong disgust towards it, or a strong positive attraction
    • Using will and intellect,
      • so the more closely two people are in agreement or acting in accord means you can read their mind to better work together
      • the more you know about an object's history the further away / more deftly you can manipulate / the less effort taking to move it
  • Limiting the powers in some way - like Brandon did with steel and iron for telekinesis and making them act in a single line connecting the user and the object - also might help, so if for example using telepathy again, limit the telepathy to empathic emotion sensing / sensing another's intentions but not their thoughts or motivations behind them / reading another's memories but not being aware of what they are thinking or planning or feeling, could also be a factor
  • I also like the idea of object projection like a green lantern, so being able to make projections of something you feel strongly about or know a lot about could be a factor (you can make a projection of something that frightens you, or a machine you know the workings of), though lets not use will because that is the basis for how green lanterns work :-P
  • For colours, you can explore the ideas of colours outside the visual spectrum, but I would mainly go with the will-emotion-intellect structure again, so each colour is associated with an emotion, a type of action, and a type of knowledge, so each magic system pairs them in some way. So, changing red and blue for white and black
    • white and black - emotion (surprise and attention), will (increase and decrease drives), intellect (increase and decrease intelligence - might need to decrease temporarily to avoid attacks that target a mind), physical (increase energy and decrease energy)
    • red and cyan - emotion (love and anger), will (constructive and destructive drives), intellect (knowledge of how to build or destroy), physical (build up and destroy)
    • green and magenta - emotion (disgust and trust), will (attraction or repulsion to an object or location - so compel people to approach or leave), intellect (mathematical abilities and artistic abilities), physical (barriers and removing)
    • blue and yellow - emotion (sadness and happiness), will (focus on the self and on another - could also help one hide by directing attention away), intellect (add or block memories), physical (energy attacks and draining)
  • (minor note but will-emotion-intellect is a big part of my setting as well, but I am using it in a different way to this, so don't worry on that score - it mainly in my setting has to do with the nature of reality and its ties to the soul, as I believe there are three types of organs of the soul - will, emotion, intellect - but that is another discussion!)

Other possible abilities to consider and then see how to fit into a base:

  • flight (hovering, short jumps, gravity redirection, speed, duration)
  • enhanced physical traits (strength, speed, senses, toughness, reflexes, precision)
  • summoning (forming an object like mentioned above with green lantern from ones own or another's mind, bringing an actual physical being there, bringing a being from a different dimension, "banishing")
  • countering other abilities (local field that prevents them from working, targeted, blocking some but not others

 

Basically you can use emotion as a base, or the three organs of the soul as a base - though not everyone calls them this, that is my term for them, everyone recognises the three fold properties of the soul or mind as being those three.

In essence I think you should mainly focus on listing abilities you would like in general, then seeing a way to tie them together to the central mechanics. Those are just some of my suggestions. Hope this helps!

 

*[Edit] slight correction, I just double checked and the base emotions are anger-fear, anticipation-surprise, sadness-joy, trust-disgust.

Edited by Ixthos
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Oh, wow, that's started a ton of ideas churning.

Another one-- what if you burned emotions as fuel? Maybe you have strong feelings associated with a person, place or thing. You can power your magic by sacrificing your connection to that-- you'd either forget it entirely, or remember it only as bare facts, with no deeper meaning.

This could force characters to make some agonizing choices. What if the protagonist could only accomplish his goal by sacrificing his connection to his wife?

Or, a character who wants to burn all his emotions, forget the pain he's suffered... but then in order to power his magic he's forced to make new connections and open himself up to emotional wounding again? Maybe he intends to destroy those relationships, but realizes he'd rather live vulnerable and connected to others rather than powerful and alone?

I have an entire character arc right there.

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Oh, ploof.

*reads introductory post to that very long RP thread*

Not only did he beat me to the emotions idea, but he also has ‘Paladins’ and ‘nectar’, terms I use to describe some of the magical going-ons in the last novel I drafted. 

At least his use of the terms seem to refer to something entirely different.

‘Siren’s Call’ worldbuilding is interesting. I might rework some of those ideas into my own universe.

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6 hours ago, Zachary Holbrook said:

Oh, ploof.

*reads introductory post to that very long RP thread*

Not only did he beat me to the emotions idea, but he also has ‘Paladins’ and ‘nectar’, terms I use to describe some of the magical going-ons in the last novel I drafted. 

At least his use of the terms seem to refer to something entirely different.

‘Siren’s Call’ worldbuilding is interesting. I might rework some of those ideas into my own universe.

Paladin is an often-used term you're okay to use, I don't know about nectar. I love the RP, if you'd like to join I can help you out. ;)

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2 hours ago, Ookla the Grammatical said:

Paladin is an often-used term you're okay to use, I don't know about nectar. I love the RP, if you'd like to join I can help you out. ;)

Isn't nectar a Greecian term? If so it has been in the public domain for a looooong time. :P

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On 12/3/2020 at 3:49 PM, Zachary Holbrook said:

-Teleporting. Different magic systems use different fuels to make you vanish and instantly appear in another place. In order to teleport, however, you have to 'ride' along your emotional connection to another person. That is, the deeper your relationship with another, the more mutual love and understanding you have, the easier it is for you to teleport to that person's side, regardless of distance. 

Okay, awesome. This is really awesome. Obviously a cool magic system doesn't automatically make a great book, but if you can do that this sounds amazing.

Anyways, I'm the theme person, so here are my two cents. Theme is often a good way to flesh out magic systems. People brought up futuresight/telling the future earlier, and it's a good example. Brandon's use of futuresight- seeing possibilities rather than certainties- highlights themes of free will. On the other hand, I'm writing a story (sci-fi- it's complicated but I basically have a prophecy using time-travel) where the future cannot be changed. This forces the characters to struggle, as they feel like they've been saddled with a destiny they don't want. In other words, the way that these magic systems use prophecy influences the themes (and therefore the characters and character arcs!).

Taking a look at teleportation- you linked it to emotional connection, which is awesome, but also rife with thematic opportunities. Do these connections change as your emotional connection changes (say, as a relationship shifts from friendship to nemeses to love to hatred...)? Will different sorts of emotional connections result in different "forms" of teleportation- say, would a character's connection with say, their high school crush, be different from their soulmate? Or the villain who tortured them? Or the abusive friend?

What constitutes an emotional connection? What is the role of emotion in relationships? What if someone is in a relationship without emotion (arranged marriage? forced foster parent?)? Does this emotional connection change with mood, or is it an "overall" connection? Would it be different for a bipolar person? Would you have a usable connection to someone you haven't met yet, say, your future spouse?

Anyways, those are the thoughts that went through my head. Thematic implications in magic systems are my bread and butter, so there you go.

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