Need help with a weather - based magic system.

[NiightLiight]

Hello again,

This time I am curious about what kind of magic system can be created based on the theme of the weather. Usually this is associated with water, wind and lightning manipulation, but I want to create something else. If possible, can you guys share your ideas? Thanks!

[TheSurvivorofDeath]

Man you are prolific. Almost as prolific as me. Anywho.

We want a different take on weather magic. We’re not looking for weather manipulation like production of storms or causing of floods. Great. All in good fun.

So, a good idea is, first of all, a passive sense of weather patterns and maybe a natural resistance to most extreme weather. Basic passive magic. Then, for active magic, a powerful ability is granted based on the weather pattern present. Hot weather? Heat redirection or generation. Cold weather? Something to do with ice, or something more metaphorical like slowing time, as cold is the slowing of particles. Storm?  Speed or lightning powers. Tornado? Flight. Flood? Water breathing, enhanced swimming, et cetera. 

Just some quick ideas I had.

[Through the Living Heir he/him]

1 hour ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

So, a good idea is, first of all, a passive sense of weather patterns and maybe a natural resistance to most extreme weather. Basic passive magic. Then, for active magic, a powerful ability is granted based on the weather pattern present. Hot weather? Heat redirection or generation. Cold weather? Something to do with ice, or something more metaphorical like slowing time, as cold is the slowing of particles. Storm?  Speed or lightning powers. Tornado? Flight. Flood? Water breathing, enhanced swimming, et cetera. 

Based on this, perhaps each person, (or each magic user, but not everyone) has only one or two weather patterns they draw power from. Maybe the better the weather matches the weather the magic is was born in, or became a mage during, the stronger the effect. Rarer weather would logically cause stronger effects. Maybe there are three weather categories; temperature, precipitation, and atmosphere (wind and clouds). Each causes a different effect, which are multiplied together to form a more powerful combination power when several conditions match. 
For instance, a mage was born on a whiteout blizzard: crazy strong winds (which might be movement themed), tons of snow (perhaps relating to confusion or misdirection, or maybe simply volume), very cold (which may relate to creation of things, such as snow and ice, which couldn’t exist otherwise). This confers an example power, perhaps misdirecting teleportation. If no condition matches, the weather mage can do nothing, or perhaps can do very little. If one condition matches, for instance it’s cold but clear and still, they can perform a small effect, maybe summoning an illusory duplicate for a second. In a warm but windy and rainy day, where two conditions match, the effects would combine and be more powerful. Maybe our weather mage can teleport ten feet or so, disappearing for around 15 seconds after doing so. If all three conditions match, in a very windy blizzard, the weather mage could teleport 200 feet, leaving behind a duplicate that does what the mage wants and can interact with objects, but dissolves when damaged, while the mage stays invisible until they no longer want to be, the blizzard ends, or the duplicate is killed. 
 

Some unanswered questions I’ll leave to other people or tomorrow me: 

What effects do different weather conditions have? Is there a theme for each category? How much of a gradient is there for the weather types? Are different things on the same category (light breeze to heavy gust, for example) steps on the gradient, or not really matching adjacent conditions? 
What actually causes the weather magic to become possible? How do you become a mage? 
What legends and beliefs are there, both about the magic, and about other things related to the magic? How is weather seen? How are the mages treated? What status do they hold? 
How are you actually using this in the story? What sorts of powers need to exist for the plot to work? Is there a chosen one, who could be the main character, or perhaps the villain? (For example, one who is born under the clouds of ash from a volcano will inherit great power over the people, and is destined to rule.) 

Ok, that’s all I have right now. I can’t wait to see what everyone else has thought of! 

Edited June 25, 2024 by Dragonheir
Stupid autocorrect. Grr.

[TheSurvivorofDeath]

15 minutes ago, Dragonheir said:

Based on this, perhaps each person, (or each magic user, but not everyone) has only one or two weather patterns they draw power from. Maybe the better the weather matches the weather the magic is was born in, or became a mage during, the stronger the effect. Rarer weather would logically cause stronger effects. Maybe there are three weather categories; temperature, precipitation, and atmosphere (wind and clouds). Each causes a different effect, which are multiplied together to form a more powerful combination power when several conditions match. 
For instance, a mage was born on a whiteout blizzard: crazy strong winds (which might be movement themed), tons of snow (perhaps relating to confusion or misdirection, or maybe simply volume), very cold (which may relate to creation of things, such as snow and ice, which couldn’t exist otherwise). This confers an example power, perhaps misdirecting teleportation. If no condition matches, the weather mage can do nothing, or perhaps can do very little. If one condition matches, for instance it’s cold but clear and still, they can perform a small effect, maybe summoning an illusory duplicate for a second. In a warm but windy and rainy day, where two conditions match, the effects would combine and be more powerful. Maybe our weather mage can teleport ten feet or so, disappearing for around 15 seconds after doing so. If all three conditions match, in a very windy blizzard, the weather mage could teleport 200 feet, leaving behind a duplicate that does what the mage wants and can interact with objects, but dissolves when damaged, while the mage stays invisible until they no longer want to be, the blizzard ends, or the duplicate is killed. 
 

Some unanswered questions I’ll leave to other people or tomorrow me: 

What effects do different weather conditions have? Is there a theme for each category? How much of a gradient is there for the weather types? Are different things on the same category (light breeze to heavy gust, for example) steps on the gradient, or not really matching adjacent conditions? 
What actually causes the weather magic to become possible? How do you become a mage? 
What legends and beliefs are there, both about the magic, and about other things related to the magic? How is weather seen? How are the mages treated? What status do they hold? 
How are you actually using this in the story? What sorts of powers need to exist for the plot to work? Is there a chosen one, who could be the main character, or perhaps the villain? (For example, one who is born under the clouds of ash from a volcano will inherit great power over the people, and is destined to rule.) 

Ok, that’s all I have right now. I can’t wait to see what everyone else has thought of! 

The category idea is solid, but it’s almost too limiting. It depends on how variable weather is in this world, but some people can go their whole lives without seeing a blizzard on earth, or only see one or two. That makes it very difficult to do anything with magic, especially if you want to have dueling magic users who might have drastically different abilities and might not be able to use any significant power. But if we have it be a sort of general thing that any magic user can get from any weather pattern, that allows magic to still be variable and interesting. I do like the idea of favoring a weather pattern similar to the one seen at birth, but I don’t like limiting it to just that. I also like the three category idea, as that lets thematic effects be produced if it’s thought out. Plus, we could have different magic users get different powers in the same weather, just following a common theme. 
I agree that many questions still need to be answered regarding this magic system.

[NiightLiight]

1 hour ago, Dragonheir said:

Some unanswered questions I’ll leave to other people or tomorrow me: 

What effects do different weather conditions have? Is there a theme for each category? How much of a gradient is there for the weather types? Are different things on the same category (light breeze to heavy gust, for example) steps on the gradient, or not really matching adjacent conditions? 
What actually causes the weather magic to become possible? How do you become a mage? 
What legends and beliefs are there, both about the magic, and about other things related to the magic? How is weather seen? How are the mages treated? What status do they hold? 
How are you actually using this in the story? What sorts of powers need to exist for the plot to work? Is there a chosen one, who could be the main character, or perhaps the villain? (For example, one who is born under the clouds of ash from a volcano will inherit great power over the people, and is destined to rule.) 

This magic system is very interesting and has a lot of potential, but first I think just like the first unanswered question the different effects and themes of different weather conditions would have to be decided. For instance, how do we categorize what the difference between strong gust and light breeze are? what if the wind strength is in between? I think for this, maybe the strength of the gust determines the strength of that particular category of power. Also, the different seasons and locations that people are born in also affects what weather conditions they would be born under. That can easily inspire integrating world building where people live in places with frequent storms or cold areas in the hopes of creating mages (will get better names later). 

Instead of just the weather, like you said maybe other natural phenomenon such as volcanic eruption can also grant powers. However, for now I think limiting it to temperature, precipitation, and atmosphere is a really solid framework. However, I just need to think of what powers are tied to these three things, such of the type of mage created when someone is born in a cold, snowy (rain when it is cold), and still condition. Also, that might make everyone essentially a mage, but maybe it requires specific combinations like you said to make it work. 

Overall, there are a lot of aspects regarding using the weather or natural phenomenons as a theme for magic systems, but I think it could be possible if there is a way to catagorize each weather condition into a unified system (like you said by spliting it into three catagories: precipitation, temperature, and atmosphere). 

1 hour ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

The category idea is solid, but it’s almost too limiting. It depends on how variable weather is in this world, but some people can go their whole lives without seeing a blizzard on earth, or only see one or two. That makes it very difficult to do anything with magic, especially if you want to have dueling magic users who might have drastically different abilities and might not be able to use any significant power. But if we have it be a sort of general thing that any magic user can get from any weather pattern, that allows magic to still be variable and interesting. I do like the idea of favoring a weather pattern similar to the one seen at birth, but I don’t like limiting it to just that. I also like the three category idea, as that lets thematic effects be produced if it’s thought out. Plus, we could have different magic users get different powers in the same weather, just following a common theme. 
I agree that many questions still need to be answered regarding this magic system.

I think the biggest problem is still identifying what exactly do the themes and categories do. Basically what kind of powers do people get that makes sense to the theme of the sky? For example, if someone was born in a desert, where there are hardly any precipitation, sometimes strong winds, and both high and low temperatures (day/night), what powers would people born under this conditions have? I think I would have to define what these three categories represent in terms of magic, just like how each metal in Mistborn grants certain powers. In this case, it would be a little more difficult since these catagories can vary from high, medium, low, and anything in between. 

If you think of anything else plz lemme know  

[Through the Living Heir he/him]

8 hours ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

The category idea is solid, but it’s almost too limiting. It depends on how variable weather is in this world, but some people can go their whole lives without seeing a blizzard on earth, or only see one or two. That makes it very difficult to do anything with magic, especially if you want to have dueling magic users who might have drastically different abilities and might not be able to use any significant power.

I’ve come up with a solution! Air conditioning! 
The effect of buildings over weather conditioning could help solve our “blizzards are really rare” problem. Depending on how artificially induced temperatures and other weather conditions affect the magic (maybe they activate the power, but not very strongly), they could allow a mage to stack the deck in their favor, by changing the conditions of the battlefield. Perhaps the weather outside the building also has a weakened effect, allowing two different magic powers to be used against each other. 
Alternatively, we could make a very changeable weather condition (temperate, windy, and overcast, a common precursor to rain, for instance) grant the power to slowly change the weather, dropping in strength as the changes are made, as the weather conditions have changed. This would mean that extreme weather would be hard to experience, but minor, everyday weather would be easy to cause. Thus, the powers that are hard to produce could be more powerful, for balance. 
One issue with this system is that unless it is explained well, changes in weather conditions can cause a “deus ex machina” problem, as people’s powers could be deactivating or changing left and right, which may break suspension of disbelief. 
I’ll continue thinking about this today, and see if I can think of more ideas. 

[TheSurvivorofDeath]

So I’ve been thinking about the categories.

The temperature category could deal with one of three things, as I see it. Speed of the user (physical or mental), manipulation of energy, or, more abstract, the manipulation of time. This can manifest in various ways depending on the temperature being dealt with.

Precipitation is harder. It could deal with many things, as water has many properties. I’m sort of stumped here.

Atmosphere could deal with anything to do with the sky. Flight, gravitational manipulation, enhanced lung capacity, all kinds of things. 
 

Another major problem we have to consider is perception of weather. Do we use scientific measurements to determine what is hot or what is high precipitation? Or do we consider the individual feelings of the magic user, what they find hot or humid? 

[NiightLiight]

3 hours ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

The temperature category could deal with one of three things, as I see it. Speed of the user (physical or mental), manipulation of energy, or, more abstract, the manipulation of time. This can manifest in various ways depending on the temperature being dealt with.

Precipitation is harder. It could deal with many things, as water has many properties. I’m sort of stumped here.

Atmosphere could deal with anything to do with the sky. Flight, gravitational manipulation, enhanced lung capacity, all kinds of things. 

This is very interesting. I have also been thinking about this and maybe the temperature catagory can be related to energy. All atoms and molecule i think vibrate and move, and I think higher temperature causes them to move faster vise versa. Therefore the temperature catagory can be related to the manipulation of energy, like to heat up or cool objects, or to speed up themselves or to slow others etc...

Precipitation is definately harder, and the only thing i can really think of is the manipulation of water. Maybe the user can be like Edgedancers, reducing friction or increasing it? Water and ice can act as lubricants, so this is another idea...

For atmosphere, gravitational manipulation might be a more "sciency" idea. It can also allow flight like for the Windrunners and Skybreakers in Stormlight. Maybe the users can increase or decrease gravity, and also change the direction of it. 

Plz lemme know if you have any questions or think of smth else, thanks

3 hours ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

Another major problem we have to consider is perception of weather. Do we use scientific measurements to determine what is hot or what is high precipitation? Or do we consider the individual feelings of the magic user, what they find hot or humid? 

Oh dear, this might be complicated... I think a more uniform measurement of what is hot and high precipitation would be more consistant, but im not sure if this is the best decision or not

[TheSurvivorofDeath]

24 minutes ago, NiightLiight said:

This is very interesting. I have also been thinking about this and maybe the temperature catagory can be related to energy. All atoms and molecule i think vibrate and move, and I think higher temperature causes them to move faster vise versa. Therefore the temperature catagory can be related to the manipulation of energy, like to heat up or cool objects, or to speed up themselves or to slow others etc...

Precipitation is definately harder, and the only thing i can really think of is the manipulation of water. Maybe the user can be like Edgedancers, reducing friction or increasing it? Water and ice can act as lubricants, so this is another idea...

For atmosphere, gravitational manipulation might be a more "sciency" idea. It can also allow flight like for the Windrunners and Skybreakers in Stormlight. Maybe the users can increase or decrease gravity, and also change the direction of it. 

Plz lemme know if you have any questions or think of smth else, thanks

Oh dear, this might be complicated... I think a more uniform measurement of what is hot and high precipitation would be more consistant, but im not sure if this is the best decision or not

So our precipitation category needs to utilize properties of water for the theme. The annoying thing is, water has a metric tonne of properties. You could do something with the adhesive and cohesive properties of water. That could manifest as internal and external effects. You could also work with the biological importance of water, but that’s pretty iffy for magic. You could do straight hydrokinesis, but we wanted a unique weather magic so that’s a bit too on the nose. You can also work with water being a universal solvent, but that’s tricky too. I personally thing working with cohesion and adhesion is the best bet, as you can have that manifest as a sort of manipulation of internal structure or external connections to the user. Not perfect, but an idea.

What measurements would we use for temperature and precipitation, if we go the scientific route? I also personally think that is the ideal method, since it’s easier to quantify magic. Plus, if we go with my idea of a basic underlying weather resistance, the user isn’t going to feel weather universally. So scientific measurements are best. 

[NiightLiight]

6 minutes ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

You could do something with the adhesive and cohesive properties of water. That could manifest as internal and external effects.

Ohh this could be cool, sort of like how it works in Stormlight. Basically people can make themselves stuck to something or slide around like they are ice skating lol. That could be very interesting. Internal effects can be like how the edgedancers can manipulate their own friction, and external effects can be like how the windrunners and others with cohesion (adhesion?) can bind objects. 

 

9 minutes ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

What measurements would we use for temperature and precipitation, if we go the scientific route? I also personally think that is the ideal method, since it’s easier to quantify magic. Plus, if we go with my idea of a basic underlying weather resistance, the user isn’t going to feel weather universally. So scientific measurements are best. 

I think for measurements it can be like using celsius, kelvin, or an entirely made up unit of measurement for temperature. For precipitation, it can simply be how much water/snow/hail fell. It can be measured by just using a container, then seeing how much water/snow/ice that was. But honestly it doesn't have to get that meticulous; for precipitation people can just see how strong the rain is, but to ensure preciseness they can just measure the precipitation like how the weather specialist do them. 

This allows for cool worldbuilding oppertunties where the society has a very advance weather measuring or predicting technology, and people like the stormwardens in Stormlight may exist, but maybe they are not frowned upon like in Stormlight.