worldbuilding Fantasy World planning

[MacThorstenson he/him]

This is as would be seen in a lab for a class.

Spell for water:

Introduction: There are a lot of things that go into creating a compound, and a lot of concepts that we will touch on. The first is placement. You need to be extremely specific on where you want your product, there will be no time to adjust this later due to the nature of spells.

Spells map out what is going to happen ahead of time, and then everything happens in an instant.

In addition the fuel and the rate of consumption of fuel is necessary. Other wise it will again, all be consumed in an instant. 

Placement:
Of Products:
You need to specify where you want the product to appear. If you specify nothing it will appear with the center of mass one foot above the center of the circle, the appearance point. In the case of liquids, it will appear in a droplet with the center over the center of Mass. Thankfully transmutation circles deal with the vacuums, making sure that no two atoms appear in the same place, and that no vacuums are caused by disappearing objects. In the event of water, it may be beneficial to either specify the size and shape of the container, or specify that you don't want the entire transmutation to occur at the same time, allowing a little to be formed in appearance point at a time. This allows the water to drain into your container via a trickle. Note: this may consume more fuel and require specifications in the fuel area.

Note that this a a crash course on placement and that placement needs to be completed very thoroughly, as it is the fundamental part of the reaction.

Of reactants:
The reactants of water are tricky. You need to specify exactly what you are looking for, or else you will cause problems. In this case you want to specify and area that you want the spell to search (This area cannot exceed the size of the reactant circle) and specify what you want it to find. If you say Hydrogen instead of Hydrogen gas, you can break apart molecules causing violent reactions. Unlike vacuums, the nature of the magic doesn't protect from this.

Fuel:
You need to specify how much fuel is consumed, when to stop consuming fuel and where to take the fuel from first if necessary. Many of these commands are repetitive and usable in general forms, experienced magic users may want to internalize these instead of writing them out every time.

If these are not included, then all the fuel will be consumed at once, regardless of how much was needed. This can result in large explosions. It may not be the best. 

In addition, unless specified otherwise, the equation will begin running when the fuel is placed regardless of completion. The best way to deal with this is to create a dot and link it to the system, so that it won't start unless something is on it, this can be refined to be specific things, like your finger. This can be refined to be a general condition, like a command, and can be internalized as it can be important.

Draw the overlying circles.

1. In the water circle:
   1. Specify where in the circle you want the result to appear, see placement for guidelines.
   2. Specify that you want the Oxygen gas to be separated into an atomic state.
   3. Specify that you want the Hydrogen gas to be separated into an atomic state.
   4. Specify that you want the atoms to be combined in a ratio of 1 Oxygen to 2 Hydrogen.
2. In the Oxygen Circle:
   1. Specify what you want it to look for and where you want it to search. May be beneficial to have containers of pure oxygen gas. See placement for guidelines.
3. In the Hydrogen Circle:
   1. Specify what you want it to look for and where you want it to search. May be beneficial to have containers of pure Hydrogen gas. See placement for guidelines.
4. In the fuel circle:
   1. Specify the rate at which you want the fuel to be consumed. See Fuel for guidelines.
5. Then you place the containers in their circles if you desire. 
   1. Its recommended for minimal mess that you have a receptacle for the water, and containers of Oxygen and hydrogen Gas. Unless the fuel is in a volatile state, a container won't be needed.
6. Then you place the fuel in the circle. 
7. Trigger the reaction.

Without any specification, this is what would happen:

All the Oxygen gas and hydrogen gas above their circles (Height would be determined by the amount of fuel) would be separated into atoms and combined in a ratio of 1:2, forming a sphere of water with its center at the appearance point. Then it would appear and drop to the ground.

With specification:

The Oxygen and hydrogen gas in the defined areas would be broken up little by little and appear as a trickle at the appearance point.

@xinoehp512 @Steel Inquisitive 

EDIT: Dang it took me 40 minutes to write that, and I never even developed symbols.

Edited March 1, 2019 by MacThorstenson

[xinoehp512 he/him]

It's good! It seems very programmatic, which is what I think this system should be going for. If other people agree, I think we can begin to build the Ritual system off of this.

I had an idea regarding the Natural/Ritual dichotomy: what if Ritual magic disrupted Natural magic?

[Steel Inquisitive he/him]

I like it! My only thought being that it would require them to be fairly scientifically advanced, but that's not a bad thing.

 Now what about the innate system? Many people were saying it would mimic the ritual system but wouldn't need all the prep. So in this case what would the innate magician do? Would he be able to combine things at an atomic level to form many different things or would he only be able to combine Oxygen and Hydrogen to form water? 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Steel Inquisitive

[xinoehp512 he/him]

Do you mean Innate? Natural magic is the kind that makes the world change to match your perception. I think Innate should be a sort of halfway point between Natural and Ritual magics.

[Steel Inquisitive he/him]

1 minute ago, xinoehp512 said:

Do you mean Innate? Natural magic is the kind that makes the world change to match your perception. I think Innate should be a sort of halfway point between Natural and Ritual magics.

Oh yeah oops! Will edit.

[MacThorstenson he/him]

8 hours ago, Steel Inquisitive said:

 

I like it! My only thought being that it would require them to be fairly scientifically advanced, but that's not a bad thing.

 

This is true. 

I would say that the transmutation and elemental mixing areas are very underdeveloped. In addition I would say that they would develope their own words for this sort of stuff, and have barely any knowledge of actual science. This would be so that we can keep the setting relatively fanstasy.

8 hours ago, Steel Inquisitive said:

Now what about the innate system? Many people were saying it would mimic the ritual system but wouldn't need all the prep. So in this case what would the innate magician do? Would he be able to combine things at an atomic level to form many different things or would he only be able to combine Oxygen and Hydrogen to form water? 

In this case, he would be able to instinctively combine hydrogen gas and oxygen gas to water. Maybe he could combine it in different ratios. 

Another option is that all three are completely separated, which could be interesting for people trying to understand the connections.  

[xinoehp512 he/him]

Could the Innate system be spell-based, or is that too cliche? It would be a good halfway point between Natural and Ritual magics.

[MacThorstenson he/him]

52 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

Could the Innate system be spell-based, or is that too cliche? It would be a good halfway point between Natural and Ritual magics.

That would be cool if the innate system was verbally activated, but couldn’t be written down. 

One thing that I want to have happen is the ability to combine and change abstract concepts about people. So if I wanted to, I could change my age. 

This would require a little bit of ecology and ritual, enough ritual to do the transformation, but enough ecology to believe that age is a aspect that can be changed. 

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

1 hour ago, MacThorstenson said:

One thing that I want to have happen is the ability to combine and change abstract concepts about people. So if I wanted to, I could change my age. 

This would require a little bit of ecology and ritual, enough ritual to do the transformation, but enough ecology to believe that age is a aspect that can be changed. 

This sounds so cool! I also see this as a key part of necromancy, if that’s something that ends up going through. Not so much *actually* bringing someone back to life (bringing back the soul, etc), but believing that they can still get up, walk, do things, talk. Also gives the opportunity to link two people, or a person and an object. What you do to one affects the other (likely illegal for most applications).

Edit: Could you use this method to convince a living person that they were dead? Or to perform kind of a strange version of vaccination, where you could link two people, one who is sick, another who has survived the sickness, and trick the sick person’s body into believing that it has immunity?

Edited March 1, 2019 by ZincAboutIt

[xinoehp512 he/him]

I think that any of that sort of thing would be tied to the Natural concept of things changing based on beliefs and perceptions. It wouldn't really be as controllable.

[kenod]

7 hours ago, xinoehp512 said:

Could the Innate system be spell-based, or is that too cliche? It would be a good halfway point between Natural and Ritual magics.

 

6 hours ago, MacThorstenson said:

That would be cool if the innate system was verbally activated, but couldn’t be written down. 

One thing that I want to have happen is the ability to combine and change abstract concepts about people. So if I wanted to, I could change my age. 

This would require a little bit of ecology and ritual, enough ritual to do the transformation, but enough ecology to believe that age is a aspect that can be changed. 

Verbal activation would be fun, though I think that the spells being more of a trigger phrase might work better. Basically, the spells would hold a certain meaning to the user, altering their mind into something capable of manipulating their magic. This means that different incantations would allow Innate mages to manifest their abilities in different ways, such as someone capable of creating/manipulating water using a different incantation for summoning a large area rainstorm than for creating a small amount of water to refill their water bag, or someone who can manipulate heat using different incantations for freezing things or lighting things on fire.

I think spells would exist inside Ritual magic as well though, mostly as hacks meant to make it more usable in combat or as quick and dirty spellcasting. These would probably be less flexible than Innate magic though, since mentally controlling spell variables would probably be extremely difficult. These would take the forms of paper with parts of spells (or full spells) already written down, so you just have to activate them, or tattoos, or tools with spells inscribed on them. The most difficult would probably drawing out the full spell in your mind, visualizing it.
As a side note, I expect Ritual mages who use mental components for their spells to use incantations as well, to help with their focus, or guide their visualizations, possibly having special training where specific words are associated with specific symbols or ways to draw them.
Incantations wouldn't have to be in foreign languages either, though something similar to Dresden Files incantations might apply, where people pick foreign languages they don't expect to speak to prevent their training from accidentally having them cast spells whenever they talk.

[xinoehp512 he/him]

Great idea! Are you suggesting that each Innate user would have a different "area of specialty" so to speak?

38 minutes ago, kenod said:

think spells would exist inside Ritual magic as well though, mostly as hacks meant to make it more usable in combat or as quick and dirty spellcasting. These would probably be less flexible than Innate magic though, since mentally controlling spell variables would probably be extremely difficult. These would take the forms of paper with parts of spells (or full spells) already written down, so you just have to activate them, or tattoos, or tools with spells inscribed on them. The most difficult would probably drawing out the full spell in your mind, visualizing it.

I would imagine Ritual spells as a completed spell that has been written down but only partially activated. When a certain trigger is activated (which may be a phrase) the power is released. It could be hard to determine a specific target, but you could do "point-and-aim" things or blanket effects.

[MacThorstenson he/him]

If the parts of ritual spells that wizards had internalized needed to Be activates by a verbal command, we need to be strict about the strength of the command. 

The verbal command would need to be irrevocably tied to the affects you want it to achieve, such that if you heard it in passing you would be distracted as your mind prepared to cast a spell. 

[xinoehp512 he/him]

I don't think that's how it would work, though. The trigger could be anything; it's built into the spell. The trick is detecting that the trigger has been activated and making sure it hits the intended target. The spell itself would be drawn out beforehand.

[MacThorstenson he/him]

But ritual magic, the way we have it, cant be aimed or anything like that.

If people are using magic for combat its because they enchanted a weapon or object with that sort of thing.

[Steel Inquisitive he/him]

^ What he said. 

I think we should leave Ritual magic as largely non-combative. You could use it to enchant weapons, or perhaps set traps, but I think we should leave the more combative stuff to the Innates.

With the Natural magic..... are we saying it would be a very passive thing? Like basically part of the setting and no one actually manipulates it? Or are we saying it's something everyone knows about and is actively manipulating? Also, how fast does it work? I would imagine the landscape changes would happen slowly (like years) but what about other things? If I wanted red hair.... if I got my whole family thinking about me with red hair, could the change happen over a week?

[MacThorstenson he/him]

30 minutes ago, Steel Inquisitive said:

^ What he said. 

I think we should leave Ritual magic as largely non-combative. You could use it to enchant weapons, or perhaps set traps, but I think we should leave the more combative stuff to the Innates.

With the Natural magic..... are we saying it would be a very passive thing? Like basically part of the setting and no one actually manipulates it? Or are we saying it's something everyone knows about and is actively manipulating? Also, how fast does it work? I would imagine the landscape changes would happen slowly (like years) but what about other things? If I wanted red hair.... if I got my whole family thinking about me with red hair, could the change happen over a week?

I also agree that we should leave the combative stuff to the innate, but I do have one thing to say on the division of magics.

If the main magic is ritualistic magic, then the entire magic system for the world could lean more toward magi-tech, and not something more Wizardy like Harry potter, Gandalf, or even skyrim magic.

If we wanted, we could separate the three branches of magic slightly, Keeping the ritual magic to be this, while changing the innate to be more Wizardry with spoken spells, and the natural magic being something else.

I don't know about the natural magic. I would imagine that it would be very slow, and not even recognizable as manipulable. People would accept it as a way of life and wouldn't try to manipulate it and thus wouldn't have put much thought into it. I don't know though. Do you want to look into that and building that up?

As for the branches of Ritual magic, I have a few ideas in the spoiler below.

Spoiler

Here are various branches of Ritual magic, with a sentence on how they would be achieved. The first few are Kenod's from earlier.

• Necromancy: Capable of preserving dead people and messing with their aspects. Can re animate bodies, change CS's. 
  • At its core this branch of magic would be defined as anything involving messing with the dead. Doing anything with the dead involves this.
• Fleshcrafting: Magic manipulating living bodies. Mostly used as healing magic, but cosmetic usage is also possible, though rare.
  • Pretty simple, combining aspects of people and animals living forms.
• Soulworking: Directly modifying the soul. 
  • This would be the basis for Potion making and enchanting. Probably couldn't give someone innate powers based on the current definition of ritual magic (Unless innate powers were just people enchanted via Ritual magic?). This would be really complex and difficult to master. I'm imagining something where you need to be extremely specific in regards to what the spiritweb needs to be. If you take a plant and change the spirit web to an enchantment to light on fire when you say brisingr, you still need to remove the part about being a plant, and any other connections it had. First you need to deconstruct the former spirit web, then you can mold it into something new.
• Alchemy: Involves both transmutation as well as giving objects a magical nature, enchanting them. Enchanted objects have their spiritual aspect rewritten, changing their nature and granting them new powers.
  • This would take multiple forms:
    • Transmutation: Messing with things on the atomic level to change substances into another
      • This could be applied to baking.
    • Potion making: Enchanting of liquids
    • Enchanting: Adding special affects to objects via adding more spiritweb and changing that spirit web.
      • In order to enchant, you need a few things. The first is the object you want to enchant, the second is a living thing, the third is normal fuel. For this I will refer to the spirit web as a blanket.
      • At its core, enchantments are just taking the spirit web of a living thing and modifying the spiritweb, then laying it on top of the objects spirit web. This base use makes Enchantments easily changeable and movable. You can move one from one object to another as easily as you could any other type of spirit work. You can alternatively 'sew' the spiritwebs together. This provides no material benefit but prohibits tampering without extremely fine spiritweb work.
      • You need to use the spirit web of another living thing because they have more investiture, and their spiritwebs can be moved and stretched and modified more.
      • You need to modify the spiritweb of a living thing via Soulworking in order to get the enchantment you desire. The spirit web of living things can be moved and shaped into basically anything so long as you have the knowledge and desire.
      • Enchanting stones: Because the size of an object is no limitation to an enchantment, the spirit web can be removed from the living thing and placed on a normal stone, thus making an enchanting stone.
      • One example of this in practice would be taking a plant, removing the spirit web and then putting it on an enchanting stone. You can then soulwork the enchantment to do what you want, lets say to light on fire when you say brisingr. The rock will light on fire when you say brisingr, but that isn't useful. You could then move the enchantment onto a sword, and 'sew' it in. This would permanently anchor the enchantment in its current form to the sword.
      • Enchanting is big enough to warrant its own branch of magic.

 

[xinoehp512 he/him]

I imagine that the manipulation of Natural magic would be tied to belief and the gods. Someone believing in someone would cause power to flow to them. Enough power, and you Ascend. Gods would be able to push power downwards to their followers if they believed enough; this would be what causes miracles.

Edited March 2, 2019 by xinoehp512

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

5 hours ago, xinoehp512 said:

I imagine that the manipulation of Natural magic would be tied to belief and the gods. Someone believing in someone would cause power to flow to them. Enough power, and you Ascend. Gods would be able to push power downwards to their followers if they believed enough; this would be what causes miracles.

If the gods effectively “bond” with their followers this could be the two-way benefit of it. However the gods would then feel the collective compulsion of the faithful to fulfill their faith. The faithful continue to believe to receive a portion of their powers? I feel like the cost to the believer should be higher. Also, in this world are the gods humans who effectively attain godhood or collective physical manifestations of belief? I like either option and both could pose their own unique plot elements.

[Steel Inquisitive he/him]

6 hours ago, ZincAboutIt said:

If the gods effectively “bond” with their followers this could be the two-way benefit of it. However the gods would then feel the collective compulsion of the faithful to fulfill their faith. The faithful continue to believe to receive a portion of their powers? I feel like the cost to the believer should be higher. Also, in this world are the gods humans who effectively attain godhood or collective physical manifestations of belief? I like either option and both could pose their own unique plot elements.

I don't think the faithful should get anything besides the god they create. For instance: a city, that's about to be attacked, puts all it's trust in one person to protect them. That person expands in power and knowledge, but now is forced to protect the city at all costs. The people get their protector, the new god gets his power, and if the people puts their faith in the wrong person then it's everyone's loss.

I think we could have it both ways with the person/spren debate. People can rise to godhood but so can objects. If everyone believed a tree was a god, I think the tree would start gaining sapience over time. With the 'physical manifestations of belief' it could be things like..... People read in a book about a long gone hero, but they start believing in her anyways. If enough people believe in the same version of the person, the hero would "resurrect". It wouldn't be them...... not even their cognitive shadow. Just a representation of what people believe that person was like. I guess I want it both ways! 

[xinoehp512 he/him]

I was thinking that only the people with very high levels of faith would be able to perform miracles. Others might be able to perform smaller miracles, but nothing too exciting. Innates could recieve power as well, as an alternative to mined crystals.

Because of the nature of belief, if enough people believe in anything physical it should ascend. What that means might be different, depending on the object; previously nonsapient objects would likely gain some form of intelligence, but it would be much more sprenlike then a human who did the same.

[Steel Inquisitive he/him]

5 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

I was thinking that only the people with very high levels of faith would be able to perform miracles. Others might be able to perform smaller miracles, but nothing too exciting. Innates could recieve power as well, as an alternative to mined crystals.

Because of the nature of belief, if enough people believe in anything physical it should ascend. What that means might be different, depending on the object; previously nonsapient objects would likely gain some form of intelligence, but it would be much more sprenlike then a human who did the same.

I think that only the god would be able to perform the impossible. Unless everyone believed their god was capable of bestowing magic powers to her followers..... but then it would be up to the god who got what abilities. I would think that you would have to have an entire nation believing in you before you had enough power to give to others. And the people would have to believe the god was capable of giving faithful powers.

What do you mean by 'ascend'? I was thinking no matter how powerful a person became they would still have a physical body... Unless they started without one of course.

[xinoehp512 he/him]

22 hours ago, MacThorstenson said:

I also agree that we should leave the combative stuff to the innate, but I do have one thing to say on the division of magics.

If the main magic is ritualistic magic, then the entire magic system for the world could lean more toward magi-tech, and not something more Wizardy like Harry potter, Gandalf, or even skyrim magic.

If we wanted, we could separate the three branches of magic slightly, Keeping the ritual magic to be this, while changing the innate to be more Wizardry with spoken spells, and the natural magic being something else.

I don't know about the natural magic. I would imagine that it would be very slow, and not even recognizable as manipulable. People would accept it as a way of life and wouldn't try to manipulate it and thus wouldn't have put much thought into it. I don't know though. Do you want to look into that and building that up?

As for the branches of Ritual magic, I have a few ideas in the spoiler below.

  Hide contents

Here are various branches of Ritual magic, with a sentence on how they would be achieved. The first few are Kenod's from earlier.

• Necromancy: Capable of preserving dead people and messing with their aspects. Can re animate bodies, change CS's. 
  • At its core this branch of magic would be defined as anything involving messing with the dead. Doing anything with the dead involves this.
• Fleshcrafting: Magic manipulating living bodies. Mostly used as healing magic, but cosmetic usage is also possible, though rare.
  • Pretty simple, combining aspects of people and animals living forms.
• Soulworking: Directly modifying the soul. 
  • This would be the basis for Potion making and enchanting. Probably couldn't give someone innate powers based on the current definition of ritual magic (Unless innate powers were just people enchanted via Ritual magic?). This would be really complex and difficult to master. I'm imagining something where you need to be extremely specific in regards to what the spiritweb needs to be. If you take a plant and change the spirit web to an enchantment to light on fire when you say brisingr, you still need to remove the part about being a plant, and any other connections it had. First you need to deconstruct the former spirit web, then you can mold it into something new.
• Alchemy: Involves both transmutation as well as giving objects a magical nature, enchanting them. Enchanted objects have their spiritual aspect rewritten, changing their nature and granting them new powers.
  • This would take multiple forms:
    • Transmutation: Messing with things on the atomic level to change substances into another
      • This could be applied to baking.
    • Potion making: Enchanting of liquids
    • Enchanting: Adding special affects to objects via adding more spiritweb and changing that spirit web.
      • In order to enchant, you need a few things. The first is the object you want to enchant, the second is a living thing, the third is normal fuel. For this I will refer to the spirit web as a blanket.
      • At its core, enchantments are just taking the spirit web of a living thing and modifying the spiritweb, then laying it on top of the objects spirit web. This base use makes Enchantments easily changeable and movable. You can move one from one object to another as easily as you could any other type of spirit work. You can alternatively 'sew' the spiritwebs together. This provides no material benefit but prohibits tampering without extremely fine spiritweb work.
      • You need to use the spirit web of another living thing because they have more investiture, and their spiritwebs can be moved and stretched and modified more.
      • You need to modify the spiritweb of a living thing via Soulworking in order to get the enchantment you desire. The spirit web of living things can be moved and shaped into basically anything so long as you have the knowledge and desire.
      • Enchanting stones: Because the size of an object is no limitation to an enchantment, the spirit web can be removed from the living thing and placed on a normal stone, thus making an enchanting stone.
      • One example of this in practice would be taking a plant, removing the spirit web and then putting it on an enchanting stone. You can then soulwork the enchantment to do what you want, lets say to light on fire when you say brisingr. The rock will light on fire when you say brisingr, but that isn't useful. You could then move the enchantment onto a sword, and 'sew' it in. This would permanently anchor the enchantment in its current form to the sword.
      • Enchanting is big enough to warrant its own branch of magic.

 

I think that alchemy/enchanting is more of a spellwork/Innate magic, personally. Maybe that sort of magic could be a Ritual/Innate combination.

Fleshcrafting/Soulworking is basically just spiritweb manipulation, which is something that can be done scientifically.

When you say 'change CS' do you mean turn them back into humans?

1 hour ago, Steel Inquisitive said:

I think that only the god would be able to perform the impossible. Unless everyone believed their god was capable of bestowing magic powers to her followers..... but then it would be up to the god who got what abilities. I would think that you would have to have an entire nation believing in you before you had enough power to give to others. And the people would have to believe the god was capable of giving faithful powers.

What do you mean by 'ascend'? I was thinking no matter how powerful a person became they would still have a physical body... Unless they started without one of course.

A god would not just give people powers. If their followers had enough faith, they would be able to channel power to perform miracles.

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

13 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

A god would not just give people powers. If their followers had enough faith, they would be able to channel power to perform miracles.

How would this work though? If the god is only pulled into godhood through the manifestation of the faithful, then if someone is given power from said gods, they are effectively channeling their own faith. If this is possible, why have a god at all? Unless it is some kind of psychic requirement on the part of humans, that there needs to be an intermediary that acts as a dispensary of their own faith-manifestation... oooh boy I’m giving myself a headache. 

[Steel Inquisitive he/him]

6 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

I think that alchemy/enchanting is more of a spellwork/Innate magic, personally. Maybe that sort of magic could be a Ritual/Innate combination.

I feel like this is exactly what ritual magic would be able to address. In the alchemy/enchanting you're reprograming something to change/enhance it, which is what I thought we had said was what Ritual magic did.

6 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

A god would not just give people powers. If their followers had enough faith, they would be able to channel power to perform miracles.

I'm not sure I'm following..... So you're saying that if people believed in someone enough they themselves would gain powers? I don't know why they would..... After all it's everyone's group faith in a person/thing/spren that's creating a special effect at all. So why would the strength of your individual faith give you power? I feel if we do it that way the world would clutter up fast with powered people.... which in my opinion is a bad thing.