NiightLiight

1 hour ago, Dragonheir said:

If I’d known you play D&D, my explanation could have been so much simpler… Maybe each runescribe can take on an apprentice, or maybe two, but it takes long enough that most cannot mentor two. So random accidents drop the number of runescribes about as fast a new ones are trained. 

Yea, runescribes are difficult to train and not everyone has the ability to runescribe while some may be talented. 

1 hour ago, Dragonheir said:

So like the astral projection spell? 

Yeah exactly, but these people do it intuitively. The realm is kinda like the astral realm in D&D. 

1 hour ago, Dragonheir said:

I’ll see if I can think of some concept for you. (I’ve tried to make a rune system, but making designs was hard. You don’t necessarily need to draw all the runes. You can just describe them vaguely.) 

These examples could all be the same rune or be several different ones. You could even have a way to modify the runes to change the meaning (for instance, adding two diagonal lines on the fire rune might turn it to the light rune.) 

• Home/protection/safety 
• Movement/energy/excitement 
• Fire/heat/light 
• Ice/cool/dark
• Attack/anger/dangerous 
• Life/plants/health/food 
• Friendship/love 
• Think/wonder/know 

Those are what I can think of off the top of my head. I can probably get others later, once you decide how you want to organize them. 

Ohh that's very smart, I was thinking instead of alphabets the runes are catagorized as concepts just like these you said, and these concepts can also create a pantheon, which becomes a religion. I also realized that all the symbols in mistborn seem to have hemuturgic spikes through a moon-like symbol, so maybe runes of the same catagory could have a similar general shape, so like every "god" has a particular pattern. This could be really fun. 

1 hour ago, Dragonheir said:

Yeah, I do the same thing and have the same problem. Real people tend to think of more interesting ideas, but they also tend to not care about my writing. ChatGPT tends to open its statements with a rephrasing of the question, makes bullet points, then wishes you luck and compliments your question, which is what I had done.

Yeah this is so true. It takes hours just getting it to output some interesting ideas. Especially if you don't have the paid version. 3.5 likes to rephrase and it often forgets what it said before. It is good if you want something rephrased in a different way though. Also, ChatGPT is terrible at character development. I will probably use Character.ai for that. I can literally make my character into an AI on there myself. 

2 minutes ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

What kind of world do you have in mind? What things are important to the people? Things like that help determine pantheons. Either that or make up the pantheon and base beliefs off of that. Whatever works. I can help with specific deities if you provide a baseline. How many deities are you thinking of having?

Also, if you want the runes to have a language I’d go more with meanings of runes than an alphabetical deal, not letters but whole words or concepts like eastern languages.

I still haven't thought of all of these things lol, I'm not very good at worldbuilding, especially on culture and politics and religion... I think I will try to imagine how the runic language is divided first before I decide how many gods are there, but so far I thought maybe gods like the greek gods would be cool, or even like Norse mythology. 

And yeah I was thinking of basing my runes off the idea of japanese and chinese characters, since mandarin is actually my first language, but I don't want my runes to be too complex to draw, so its probably going to be like chinese characters but a lot more simple. 

1 hour ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

Great idea. Do you have a pantheon already or do you need to come up with one? And making runes is definitely going to be a pain but could be fun.

I dont have a pantheon yet... so any ideas would be great. And yea I love drawing so runes should be alright. The problem is making a different yet simple pattern for every rune, and maybe making a unique alphebet for it. 

1 minute ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

Now if you had a pantheon of deities, you could have each deity be a patron for different kinds of runes. Each god would have dominion over a category of Runescribing, and you could then learn progressively more runes and better “handwriting” for scribing them, enhancing what you can do and how powerfully you can do it. This would mean that, logically, Runescribing should be more powerful, since it literally comes from the gods. Just an idea.

Yeah, thats a great idea. Since in the cognitive realm, strong belief can become tangible (thats why there is gravity, air, etc in the realm), thats how the gods came to be. And this means I can furthur catagorize runes based on the gods that they are from, and also give it different styles since I plan on actually making the runes (but that would be a pain yet also fun). 

9 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

Birth/ancestry: you need specific ancestors to get power. It may unlock later or require other steps to use. 

Random event: something you have no control over, but could happen to anyone gives you powers. For instance, purely random with no noticeable cause, struck by lightning in a magic storm, or based on the constellations when you are born. 
 

Not random event: you or someone else must do something to grant you magic. Examples: a wizard must choose you to pass on their power, you need to meditate on top of a certain mountain, or you need to win a contest you can only ever enter once. 

These are great! Thanks,

There is a realm called the cognitive realm in my world, similar to shadesmar but not exactly. I wanna make it so that power is derived from there, from the meaning of the runes. Maybe similar to the feywild in D&D, a random event where people become aware in the cognitive realm is how they gain the potential to use Runescribing. The difference between shadesmar and my cognitive realm is that people cannot physically travel there; rather, its more similar to the cognitive or ethereal realm in Magium, where ethereals are people who are basically aware in the cognitive realm and can travel on there. However, their physical bodies are still at the material realm, so its like they travel in the cognitive realm using their mind. Honestly this is a little confusing so im not exactly sure how to explain it, but it is basically like people gain the ability to move and be self-aware on the cognitive realm. On that realm, since it is the realm of the mind, anything can happen, but i also have to think about exactly how that realm works. So yeah more like a random event, but some people may also be Aware at birth. 

9 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

(Huh, I sound like ChatGPT, don’t I.) 

Lol, honestly I used ChatGPT a lot to help me organize information, so I probably sound a lot like it. Its such a great tool to help with turning a page of info into a outline, but the issue is that if I told it to help me make a magic system its very... default. Its going to be like elemental magic with exhaustion as the limitation and source being birth. I use it to generate ideas, but prompts might take hours to get it to finally output something interesting. Just needs preserverance

9 hours ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

You can limit it by language or general location. Someone from certain areas can develop the power as long as they learn the language properly. Or, there’s temples or monuments from the people who spoke the primordial language, which are infused with power that can make someone a Runescribe.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with and I’m also open to reading your drafts as you develop your story.

That could be interesting if I made it so that people gain powers by learning it, like the wizard class in D&D. The temples also gave me a cool idea where just like warlocks in D&D, maybe Runescribing becomes something religious and people must have a patron before they can actually draw runes with power. 

Just now, Dragonheir said:

I was thinking combine it differently, perhaps with a couple different versions of a few runes that do mostly the same thing but not quite. 
Really close programming languages are extra annoying to figure out, cause most things are the same but there’s a couple small changes that can mess up your entire program. Lots of parentheses syntax issues, like putting more or fewer things than intended in a conditional function. 

alright thanks I think I got it now. This could be an interesting plot idea. Btw I think my world might be a post apocalyptic world, so maybe that can also support why people have different types of the same language, because of different locations, etc. Runescribes are supposed to be very rare, but that means I need a good limitation of why they are rare since Runescribing is kinda powerful. However, I really want to avoid using birth as the way to gain Runescribing, but i also cant think of other ways to limit the number of Runescribes...

15 minutes ago, Dragonheir said:

Yeah, like that. For instance, I can (or at least could) code in Python, but I’d have no idea what a program written in another programming language would do, much less be able to modify it. 

does that mean I need different runes lists if I want to create an actually runic alphebet? Or do the people use the same alphebet, but just combine it differently? 

36 minutes ago, Dragonheir said:

I’d been thinking closer to programming languages, where different syntax of runes causes the combined runes to do different things. Maybe one carver uses a “to” rune to combine effects, while another nests and overlaps runes. If the carver doesn’t know what they’re trying to do, it would be difficult to copy someone else’s program without understanding it. Like programming languages, different rune syntax allows different capabilities to be easier or harder, for instance a flowchart-like instruction system would have difficulty expressing concepts that would force arrows to overlap. 

ohh, so like how two programs may do the same things but use different runes? So the difficulty lies in basically learning others' style of runescripting?

39 minutes ago, Dragonheir said:

Yeah, trying and editing is the best way to fix narrative problems. I’d be willing to read your drafts and give feedback, if you want. I’d definitely recommend finding someone to read them, even if it’s not me. 
I’d put a plot idea, or at least a plot element, in the middle of a bunch of parentheses. If the rune writing difficulties were suddenly resolved, how would that affect the runecarvers and society? Perhaps the villain did this and is hoarding the technique, or maybe they oppose it and try to bury the knowledge again. 

Yay thank you so much. I need to work on this a bit first since I literally just changed and started a new magic system in my world, but yeah thanks for your offer. 
Also, it would be an interesting plot line if someone manage to make the rune writing difficulties resolved, but I think I don't really understand what you mean by the differences yet... could you explain a little more on it plz?

44 minutes ago, Dragonheir said:

It could be either. If you make a list of all the runes, what they do, how long they take to create, and how they interact, it’s hard magic. If you don’t know or explain those things, only narrating the results, it’s a softer magic system. Hard and soft magic isn’t a binary, there can be magic systems in the middle. 

I think I might make a list of runes, because personally i love hard magic systems. Sadly that will definately take a lot of time lol

Also is this a hard or soft magic system? Im not sure what it is lol

1 hour ago, Dragonheir said:

A limitation other than materials could be that you must discover runes for yourself, limiting the utility. This could be caused by a cultural reason (perhaps runecarvers refuse to tell others about their process, similar to real-life alchemists) or a magical reason (maybe you cannot write a rune down without it activating, which causes a potentially dangerous effect and cause it to run out of power and deactivate, or maybe each person’s runes and syntax is different, or at least non-standardized, so in order to learn multi-rune constructions or more advanced single runes, you need to find someone who does them the same as you. Apprentices typically match their masters, but as they get better and begin to experiment, their style tends to change to the point that even other apprentices of the same master cannot understand it.) If this is the case, perhaps a method to get around this has been recently discovered, drastically altering runecarver culture and capabilities. 
The system acts like programming; are there syntax errors that could bring the rune’s effect wildly off course? 

These are great ideas for limitations, and I think I can make all of these work except making the runes different for each person because I was originally thinking that the runes were the primordial language before any other language came in my world. However, maybe different people that have different intent may end up causing the same rune to have slightly different effects. That means usually a Runescribe and their apprentice could have a similar style of scribing, because the master would teach their apprentice to picture or imagine a similar thing as them when they are scribing. Also, since this system acts like programming, having too much runes on an object, having conflicting runes, or unclear intentions would cause the runebound object to behave unexpectedly. 

1 hour ago, Dragonheir said:

I think this can be executed either very well or very poorly, depending on what sort of story you’re writing. Any magic, especially an open ended one, can cause confusion and deus ex machina scenarios, so be careful of that. Good luck! 

Yeah.. The problem of confusion and dues ex machina scenarios are what is currently making me hesitant on writing. That and me stuck trying to think of a plot and compelling characters... However, I am writing a lot of drafts just to see which ones feel right. Maybe i'll figure it out if i keep going XD

5 minutes ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

Well magical ink doesn’t really work as a limitation, since most Runescribing is done by carving or can be drawn in the air. You could require a magical stylus constructed from special material, as that’s a good basic limitation. Your practical limitations are well thought out, I see no real issues there. There can be runes for an infinite number of things, such as production runes that make matter of some sort, nature runes that produce or manipulate natural phenomena, mental runes that interact with and manipulate sentient minds, and more. That’s all up to you to push the bounds of your creativity and practical magic writing. Runes can be used for many things, such as possible food production and such. Again, entirely up to what you can come up with and put into practice.

Alright thanks for the suggestions! For whether the runes are carved or drawn, I am still deciding that, but yeah a good limitation would be to make the carving tools (or drawing tools) be expensive or hard to obtain. Maybe the magic can even be genetic based, so that only certain people can gain the ability to Runescribe. 

Perhaps simple runes that are drawn in the air do not require things to create, but to create a runebound object there must be specific materials used to create them. These specific materials can range from ink, tools, and even to magical materials from the natural world. I'm not sure what it can be yet so i'll have to think about it. 

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.

The Runescribing magic system revolves around the use of runes to command objects. Each rune represents a distinct command or effect that, when inscribed, imbues objects with temporary sentience and purpose. This magic system is based on the abstract and conceptual power of symbols and words (the runes or glyphs), tapping into the inherent potential within the Runes of Creation and the universe’s acceptance of these symbols as commands. Sort of like programming an object. I got this idea from Awakening in Warbreaker and also when I was learning programming (XD what if objects can be programmed, etc...)
Here are the mechanics:

Types of Runes

• Motion Runes: Enable objects to move autonomously (e.g., a broom that sweeps the floor)
• Cognition Runes: Grant basic decision-making capabilities (e.g., a guard statue that can distinguish between friend and foe)
• Transformation Runes: Allow objects to change shape or form
• Enhancement Runes: Strengthen the properties of an object, making it stronger, sharper, or more durable
• The rarest and most advanced form of Glyphbinding involves creating Sentient Glyphs that imbue objects with a form of artificial intelligence. These objects can learn, adapt, and perform complex tasks independently, but their creation is tightly regulated and often considered dangerous. (Inspired by AI)

Rune Application

• On Objects: Runes inscribed on objects can animate them or give them specific properties
• On People: Runes inscribed on people can enhance abilities. However, not many practice this because the risk of something going wrong is much higher and with grave consequences. Humans are already sentient so usually runes don't work
• In Air: Temporary runes drawn in the air create quick and temperory effects like a gust of wind or a flash of light
• Rune Sequences: By combining multiple runes in a sequence, Scribes can create complex commands and effects. For example, a "move" rune followed by a "protect" rune could instruct a shield to fly to the user and guard them. This allows for cool things like a golem with motion, cognition, and utility runes performing guard duties
• Runes can be activated with specific command phrases in an ancient language (Idk what yet, maybe Primordial or something like that. I have a friend who makes languages so I'll ask him for help... I'm no linguist lol)

Limitations

• The effectiveness of a rune is tied to the conceptual clarity and clear intent of the Runescribe. Vague or contradictory intent can cause the rune to fail or produce unintended result. Therefore Runescribes must have a disciplined mind without distractions or doubts which can weaken or distort the rune’s effect
• Failure to activate and Runescribe may also be caused by someone acting against their own moral values. Someone who never killed or isn't violent by nature will have difficulty scribing a rune that harm others
• Runes require specific tools or materials to create (I am not sure yet). These tools or materials are either hard to obtain, or are expensive which can allow for interesting worldbuilding especially on how the economy is influenced. 
• Too many runes on an object can cause some sort of magical interference
• Runes degrade over time, especially the more it is used, the faster it degrades 

Other Info

• Scripts are like magical algorithms (like programs) that can achieve complex outcomes from the interaction of multiple runes in a precise sequence
  • Runes that provide opposite effects like telling a object to both move and stop will cause the effects to cancel each other out. The rune will basically not work. 
• Runebound objects are part of everyday life in my world, and objects like self-sweeping brooms (or flying ones if you think carefully about it XD), automations powered by runes, like golems and animated statues. It allows for many cool things to happen, and I can't wait to tie all of these ideas into a story world 

That's all I have for now. I have some things that I am not sure about yet, and if people can help me brainstorm some ideas that would be great: 

1. What are some possible limitations for Runescribing? I can't think of anything except maybe magical ink. 
2. What other types of runes can there be?
3. What are some ways that runes can be used for besides automations? 

Please let me know if you have any questions, disagreements, agreements, or something like that. I would answer all of them  

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

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  

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!

21 minutes ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

Different worlds lets you have wildly different magics with no need for a definitive common thread. Makes it much easier to get truly creative.

Yeah  

7 hours ago, J. Magi said:

-Healers having powers basic around herbs that are well known as medicinal. Maybe, they ingest their herb, magically amplify it within themselves, and then transfer the amplified affects to a patient. An example from off the top of my head would be a lavender mage. Lavender is known to help people sleep, and give them good dreams. Maybe our lavender mage uses the plant as a magical medium for putting people to sleep (this could be for medicinal purposes, or could be used on enemies as well!). Or, going further, they could access the 'dreamscape' and interfere with people's dreams using lavender. 

Ohhh I can see lots of ways this could be really cool and make sense, so people don't just magically heal but they can take the "essence" of the flower and amplify it, which limits their powers nicely where they need plants in order to heal. Maybe they could do basic healing, but needs certain plants to heal bigger things. 

7 hours ago, J. Magi said:

Several different kinds of flowers mean love. Maybe, love potions from different flower mages could have different affects. A rose mage's love potion would give the 'victim' romantic love, a forget me not mage's potion would focus on devotion, a baby's breath mage's love potion would be more innocent, etc. 

-A poppy mage being feared as the grim reaper because of their association with death. (whether or not they really have power over that could be up to you)

-The flower Amaranth symbolizes immortality. Does the flower really grant people immortality? Do mages who use the flower gain immortality? Maybe the flower is rare, and people search for it because they believe it will give them long life.  

-Himalayan blue poppy's are associated with psychic skills, which could obviously be used for telepathy and empathy type powers.

This opens up many new ideas where different flowers can have powers based on their symbolism and cultural symbolism. Additionally, I think I can make some cool worldbuilding out of this where people may regard plants differently from one culture to another, or even a civilization that regards colors and pigments from flowers to be the most sacred thing or smth like that (Warbreaker?). 

I am thinking that maybe people that ingest different flowers can gain that power for a certain amount of time, and maybe when consuming a lot of a certain type of flower can pernamently changed someone, like how in allomancy someone can become a salvant if they burn a certain type of metal too much for too long. 

Thanks! I love the idea of using the symbolism of plants as magic  

10 hours ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

Welcome to the club.

Haha once I started with magic system creating now I can't stop with the what-ifs. Its really fun to create magic systems. 

8 minutes ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

People could gain power from a storm. It’s not unoriginal to be inspired by something. Fantasy works because authors take inspiration from each other’s works. If you had magic that had people swallow metals for powers, that would be copying. But using metals or using storms is not unoriginal just because someone else did something similar. Half of everything any author has ever done was done by someone before them, it’s just about making that idea your own. It’s inspiration, not plagiarism.

Okay thank you... I think I was just getting way to caught up in the concept of originality here haha

Hey all, I am slightly obsessed with creating magic system now, so I am curious about what a nature based magic system would be like without implimenting the four elements thing. What would be a cool magic system that is life and nature themed?

If I made people gain power from storms, is it copying stormlight archive? I am so worried about originality...

30 minutes ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

Using metals for a magic system is completely fine, as long as you don’t straight up copy from Mistborn. I have a metal magic system that’s way more similar to Mistborn than this and it’s pretty much fine. Might have to tweak it a little bit but it’s okay. This isn’t problematic at all if you run with it right. 

I am still worried about the problems of originality though, because people are going to associate magic of metals with allomancy in Mistborn... So definately no eating metals here lol. I was thinking about something related to the sun, where I combine the idea i had in my previous post about the sun generating power for people because the sun itself is a god (or Daemon) called the Dawnbird. Since the sun produces electromagnetic radiation, this might make more sense. So when people "absorb" the light or whatever energy the Dawnbird creates (maybe Solfire?), people can utilize this investure in different forms of electricity etc...

As for the metals, perhaps that can be the medium of how people channel the light. So basically different types of ferrometals can do different things, like gold being used for neuro electric currents and steel and iron used generally for weapons, or some other types of metal such as zinc and copper can be used for generating more precise electrical currents to move objects (telekinesis). 

So sunlight becomes the limitation, and maybe people can only recharge their abilities with sunlight, and while using moonlight is possible it is slower and weaker than sunlight since it is only a reflection of the sun. It is also possible to use starlight or light from fire and auroras, but I will need to think about how this works and maybe come up with a better name for sunlight instead of Solfire...

3 minutes ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

As for limiting the actual use of magic, I’m at something of a loss. You could have it require some extra source of power, but that defeats the whole point of the aura. Metals for external manipulation works, but that doesn’t apply to the internal mechanics and things like that. Perhaps overuse of the magic weakens the body and mind temporarily by wearing out the aura and soul. This all depends on how you have souls and gods and whatnot working in this world, if you have them at all. 

I am toying with the idea of a conduct right now, but I am not sure whether the users themselves are conducts or do they need a tool acting as a conduct (metals like copper and zinc, etc). This could be a sorce of limitation but like you said it doesn't really apply to internal mechanics that well... Also, i am worried that using metals would be similar to Mistborn... Yea I am also at a lost of what kind of limitations I can impose. 

2 minutes ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

You could use ferromagnetic metals as a way to allow for telekinesis, just by having users use the metals to key electromagnetic fields to what they want them to do.

I think the options for telekinesis would be these:

• Manipulation of the movement of ferrimagnetic metals, similar to how it is done in Mistborn with iron and steel, or
• Using ferrimagnetic metals as a medium to move other objects by attaching the user's ferrimagnetic field to the object's field

5 minutes ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

Self protection would be more complicated and would require magnetism, like a force field.

This just gave me an awesome idea on how I can make this entire thing sound less sciency and more magical,

Since scientifically people and objects have this "electromagnetic field" around them, I can make this like an aura based thing, so telekinesis becomes more like using the aura to pick up, push away, or otherwise influence objects without touching them. That means for force fields, people can just strengthen their "aura" to make it harder for other objects or people to hit them, similar to shields. I think scientifically this is also behind why we can't just phase through things? I am not entirely sure, but something about it being the fundamental part of physics. 
 

12 minutes ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

I think neurological is the most complicated but also the most abundantly useful. You can do things like mind reading and even mind control if your user understands the electrical signaling properly

Yup, definately the most complicated but could turn out to be extremely cool, but I think overall I still have a problem with limitations, and I want to create a unifying kind of limitation, similar to how metals are needed for a misting or a mistborn to use their powers, or how casting spells in Harry Potter requires a wand (mostly). 

I'm still struggling with implimenting some limitations of this kind of power... like something these users need to have in order to manipulate electromagnetic fields...