My nameless yet overly detailed Selish magic system!

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

Warning! This post will be very technical, and requires that you read Elantris and Emperor’s soul for full comprehension, and there are mentions and spoilers of Stormlight archive up to Oathbringer

First off, a few things:

I am bad at new to this. If my magic system sucks, which it likely will, please inform me which parts leave something to be desired.

Canonically, Sel harbors 3 main sets of empires: the ones in Elantris (Arelon, Teoran, and Fjordell and it’s vassals), the ones in Emperor’s Soul (mainly MaiPon and the Rose Empire), and a vague third. Some say this third is JinDo, but, to paraphrase Khriss, there are three large Selish empire that mostly ignore each other. JinDo, however maintains great and near-equivalent relations with both sets of countries, so that I think it’s probably out of the running. But there’s a possibility that Treamayne pops up 15 minutes after this is poster with a relevant WoB disabusing me of my false notion. The mentions we have of it give impressions of a smallish trading powerhouse, a Selish Theylenah, which is very different from the sizes of the two viewpoint areas. So this is my idea for the magic system of the mysterious third.

To start off with the theory and broad details, users of this Invested art have free-floating connections attached to their spiritweb. These connections can latch on to an object, and can act like wires, conducting energy. Connections latch on to objects in pairs, and energy can only be conducted from one object to another, with a pair of “wires” latched on to each one, creating a kind of circuit. Energy can only be drawn out of an object if there’s an object in the circuit ready to receive. TL;DR: users of this system cannot invest. Energy can be drawn out of an object and converted to investiture, but only if it is then immediately turned back into energy and placed into a different object.

But since the energy is transformed into investiture and back, you have the option for it to come out in a different form; heat into directional force, or radio waves into visible light, just to name two examples.

Now into the more granular details, like initiation rites and other specifics.

It should be obvious by now that the system is end neutral. It is something like 45% Devotion, 55% Dominion due to the yet-to-be-explained initiation rites (although I’m wavering quite a bit on that percentage), and is probably 20% Physical, 60% Cognitive, and 20% Spiritual by Chaos’s categorization system

This system has magical symbols, like every other Selish system, which look something like Celtic knotwork, and are placed on the skin of the user’s hands. I’ve been calling the symbols “Runes” in my head, the users “Runics”, and the system “Runic Magic”, but that’s kind of a placeholder name more than anything else. If anyone has a good suggestion for the name of the symbols and the system, I’d be very thankful.

The Runes are brushed onto the hands of soon-to-be-Runics, using the same kind of animal based inks Soulstamping uses, before being “set” by a single stitch per rune of a needle made of bone and a duralumin thread. The stitch is pulled half through, with four of the Selish measurement closest to inches left dangling on each end of the stitch. The duralumin wire then evaporates into Devotion/Dominion’s Light, becoming loose threads of connection attached to the hand. This tattoo is nearly permanent and unchangeble without messing with the Runic’s spiritweb, and a runic cannot change their Runes. When you chose your runes, you choose them for life, so choose carefully. With great power comes great amounts of pancakes.

Runes take up most of the space of the area they’re drawn onto; each Runic has one wrapping around each non-thumb finger and extending all the way from the base to cover the fingertip, and two semicircular ones on the front and back of each hand. 8 fingers + 4x2 on the palm and back of each hand give 16 runes in total. One hand, when getting the Runes tattooed, is set as the absorptive hand, and the other the expressive. Runics generally have to touch an object to transfer energy, and it’s easiest if they use the proper part of the hand, but more experiences Runics learn to absorb or express energy with their whole body. It is a very advanced skill, however. Each Rune is set to absorb from or send to a specific range of things on its creation, and cannot be changed. The range of things a Rune could be set to interact with is formatted as <type of energy> to/from <type of object>, and the more specific each category is, the quicker a Runic can transfer energy using that Rune, but conversely, the Rune will be less versatile.

 

 

The following are the Runes of a character I made for a DnD campaign, along with explanations as to what the Runes would do, intended as an example.

Right (absorptive) hand:

Front of hand: Heat of water vapor 2x

Back of hand: Heat of water vapor, kinetic energy from shoes

First 2 fingers: Momentum guided by Intent to do harm 2x

Third finger: Kinetic energy from shoes

Fourth finger: visible light

This character revolves around forming weapons and projectiles out of ice by freezing airborne water vapor, so three of his absorptive runes are meant for that purpose, while the remaining back of hand rune is a less powerful but more versatile “heat” Rune. Though most Runics choose their expressive hand as their dominant one, because he’s generally forming weapons out of ice by absorbing heat from water vapor, he chose his dominant right hand to make it simpler. To clarify, in my head, Heat is energy with no general direction, Momentum is energy with a general direction, and kinetic energy is any non-photon/non-electromagnetic energy. The kinetic energy from shoes would effectively make shoes colder and harder to move. It’s intended to give you a moderate, variable bit of intake energy by tapping your toe quickly up and down, or by kicking your shoe if you need a lot, then absorbing its momentum. The rest is self-explanatory; this Runic can halt the momentum (relative to him) of objects someone else intends to do harm to him or others. The Runes he chose are the Runes of someone very confident in their intuition for investiture; forming specific shapes with sharp edges from air, rather than just a blob of ice, requires years of practice. 

Stormlight Archive spoilers: 

Spoiler

We’ve only ever seen it happen on the page once, from a fourth Ideal elsecaller, while a perpendicularity made the realms closer together.

Imagining a sword- or arrowhead-shaped piece of air as an object takes a huge amount of visualization power, and to be clear, Runics can’t practice before getting their runes, which are theirs for life. So this guy was very confident that he could eventually do it, despite having no practice, other than som visualization exercises, when choosing this path. The Visible light finger will be explained later.

Left (expressive) hand:

Back of hand: momentum to ice 2x

Palm of hand: Visible light 2x

First and third finger: Heat to flesh 2x

Second finger: momentum to ice

fourth finger: Visible light

First of all, I mixed up the finger order just to show that you can do whatever you storming want with the order. Momentum to ice is simple: make an arrowhead of ice, hold it between your elbows with its point and your arms pointed toward the target, add momentum and keep in contact with your left hand to keep it accelerating, like a railgun. Hear to flesh allows you to avoid freezing your digits off while swinging a giant icy battle axe around, and to give third-degree burns to your opponent. Visible light allows for two things: lasers, albeit weak ones, and illusions. You can’t make illusions over clothing, but you can absorb all incoming light that hits your skin (which is what the right pinky is for) and replace it with whatever visible light you want, creating illusions. Also difficult to master, but very useful. 
 

 

So, that’s my magic system. Please tell me your thoughts, suggestions, and naming ideas!

Tripple B out 

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

Some say this third is JinDo, but, to paraphrase Khriss, there are three large Selish empire that mostly ignore each other.

This post is the first and only time I have ever heard anybody say JinDo for the Third Continent - which we know cannot be a part of either of the two we have seen. The only piece of info we do have, so far, is - WoB:

Spoiler

<edited for length and relevance>

Brandon Sanderson

So, sure. Sel wears its inspirations quite blatantly on its sleeve, right? 

<snip>

So, the empires and things like that... for there you might have noticed that we've got a Europe centered one, and an Asia/Eastern centered one, so you might be able to theorize where the third empire's inspirations might be or at least a list of possible candidates.

ICon 2019 (Oct. 17, 2019)

Which implies that the Third Continent is likely to be based on/inspired by:

• MesoAmerican Empires (Incan, Maya, Aztec or related)
• African Empires (Carthage, Kongo, Luba, etc. There are a lot)
• Indian Subcontinent (less likely since Dhatri will be using that inspiration)

1 hour ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

But since the energy is transformed into investiture and back, you have the option for it to come out in a different form; heat into directional force, or radio waves into visible light, just to name two examples.

<Snip>

This system has magical symbols,. . ., which look something like Celtic knotwork

All Selish Magic Systems need to have roots in language in some way - runes (like Nordic Runes, and alphabet) make sense, but unles the knotwork is forming a letter (like in some old manuscripts), I'm not sure how that connects..

• AonDor - Obvious witht eh Aons
• Dakhor - Chants grow the bones into the shape of ancient Fjordel script (Elantris, ch 63)
• ChayShan - The movements of the arms and legs are "drawing" JinDo scipt with thier patterns, which is why it takes time to build the Dor and release an effect
• Forgery - Obvious with MaiPon script in the Stamp
• etc. (things like Hrovell's Alchemy, we have not seen on-screen to know the method)

Hope that helps.

Edited August 20, 2025 by Treamayne
Clarity/SPAG

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

First off,

12 hours ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

But there’s a possibility that Treamayne pops up 15 minutes after this is poster with a relevant WoB

Called it.

Second, my friend is very adamant that JinDo is the third continent, so I assumed there was at least some evidence for it. I guess he was just being errogant. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Second, I think that not all invested Selish symbols have to be language. When discussing the marks of a soulstamp briefly in Emperor’s Soul,

Quote

“So this symbol,” Gaotona said, pointing at one of her sketches of the greater stamps she would soon carve, “is a time notation, indicating a moment specifically … seven years ago?” “Yes,” Shai said, dusting off the end of a freshly carved soulstamp. “You learn quickly.”

A few things are evident. First, language is very likely a uniting factor for who can have what magic system. Teos don’t necessarily think of themselves as Arlish, but can nevertheless become Elantrians. I believe that similarly, The rose empire, MaiPon, and the nation of the bloodsealers all speak the same language, which is why they have Rememberers, forgers, and bloodsealers respectively. Unless the symbols are some sort of ancient MaiPon characters, which I feel is unlikely, these symbols have no meaning outside of soulstamp carving. Another point: The Aons, according to Khriss, existed before the Aonic people arrived, and they chose to adopt them into their language. The only reason that worked is because AonDor is super open ended, with Aons for basically everything.

But I actually happened to imagine the writing system as something that bears a similarity to Celtic knotwork, something like the ornate version of the invented language of Kēlen.

[AonEne he/him]

Hi! Just popping in to say I spoiler-tagged the Oathbringer spoiler. I can move the thread to Cosmere Discussion if you'd prefer, but it looked like the post was mostly focused on Sel with just a small aside or two so I figured here works for now unless you intend on getting more into cosmere things later. 

[Treamayne]

9 hours ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

I think that not all invested Selish symbols have to be language. When discussing the marks of a soulstamp briefly in Emperor’s Soul,

I didn't say "every symbol is a phoneme/letter/word" - I said they were rooted in Language. We see the same thing in AonDor - Elantris :

Spoiler

Ch 34:

Quote

Galladon sighed. “All right, sule, what have you discovered? Another modifier to increase the range of an Aon?”

Raoden smiled. “No, this is far more interesting. I know why Elantris is covered in slime.”

Ch 46:

Quote

A few minutes later, when Raoden had nearly completed the Aon and its modifiers, he realized that Sarene had put down her book and was watching him with interested eyes. The scrutiny made him slip again, and the Aon faded away before he even noticed what he had done. She was still regarding him as he raised his hand to begin Aon Ehe again.

Ch 53:

Quote

Then the light fell away, the wound still belching blood with each futile pump of the duke’s dying heart.

Spirit cursed. “It’s too weak,” he said, desperately beginning another Aon. “And I haven’t studied the healing modifiers! I don’t know how to target just one part of the body.”

Ch 53:

Quote

A rock of guilt burned in Raoden’s chest. If he had known the proper modifiers, he might have been able to save Roial. A gut wound took a long time to kill a man; Raoden could have healed each organ separately, then sealed the skin. Instead he had been able only to draw a general Aon that affected Roial’s entire body. The Aon’s power, already weak, had been diluted so much by the broad target that it did no good.

AonDor Blog (excerpt) WoB:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Edited for length and Relevance

AonDor

Aon Omi is a powerful Aon, and before the fall of Elantris could perform powerful magics. When drawn it puts out a powerful and pure white light; any who are touched by this light find their negative emotions wiped away, replaced by a sense of serenity and peace. It is difficult indeed to maintain a sense of hatred while Aon Omi is in force.

So powerful is this Aon, however, that using it requires much of the Elantrian who draws it. The Aon will be weak unless the one drawing it feels a sincere affection for those around him, making this Aon very difficult to use in tense situations. This strange requirement has fascinated AonDor practitioners for centuries, as it is one of the few Aons which requires something other than skill in drawing from its Elantrian.

Aon Omi is also used in other places in AonDor equations. It can be used to tie other Aon chains together, and is also a weaker power modifier, if used in the correct way.

Brandon's Blog 2008 (April 16, 2008)

 

Sometimes a modifier is another Aon, sometimes they are just marks that function much like Diacritics do in language - making adjustments to the original in some fashion. Since Selish magics are much like Programming languages, mathematical functions and symbology need some form of expression beside the base. 

9 hours ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

But I actually happened to imagine the writing system as something that bears a similarity to Celtic knotwork, something like the ornate version of the invented language of Kēlen.

Interesting, I was unfamiliar with Kelen (though it's confusing to see how the cermonial script is related to the normal script)