More of my study.
Today: magic systems.
Mine is listed below in the types (second article) but no major novels have been written with the idea that I am working with.
Some good stuff to review here.
If you landed here because you are writing a fantasy with a magic system, I added more resources at the bottom and the first article also has a list.
Thanks for tuning in!
How to Create a Rational Magic System
Spells that follow a consistent set of rules are less likely to destroy your plot.
https://mythcreants.com/blog/how-to-create-a-rational-magic-system/
Magic systems vary from colorful bears with tummy badges to ritual blood sacrifices. Magic isn’t real, so it can be anything we want. But that doesn’t mean all magic systems work equally well for stories. Some feel cohesive; others feel random. Some are carefully planned; others contradict themselves and lead to plot holes. Creating a rational magic system allows you to add realism and depth to your world while still leaving room for new and interesting changes.
What Is a Rational Magic System?
A rational magic system is one where every spell is guided by the same metaphysical laws. To the audience it will feel like every part fits together, even if they’re not precisely sure how.
Not Rational: Harry Potter
In the Harry Potter universe, magic works in several different ways:
- Wizards cast spells by waving wands and saying incantations. But once characters learn about the spell to disarm and the spell to block, they can’t extrapolate that there’s also a spell to dodge. Students learn all of the spells by memorization, because there’s no logic underpinning how they operate.
- Some plants and animals have magic inherently inside them, creating a variety of results. Wizards aren’t included in this; as far as we know, you can’t just simmer a wizard in a pot for a few days and end up with a magic potion. However, you can mix pieces of magic plants and animals in a pot and get powerful effects. While characters can invent some potions, it appears they only do it by trial and error, not through a formula that guides what goes into a potion to create specific effects.
- Old magics can occur without any intent. Harry’s mother inadvertently casts a protective spell on him by dying for him. It’s unclear whether there are any other self-casting old magic spells besides this one.
These three sets of rules don’t appear related to each other. Learning about one doesn’t give a better understanding of another. Even within one category, there’s no way to extrapolate new spells because the rules are so eclectic. That means the stories can’t foreshadow spells prior to their explicit introduction, and when a protagonist has to face a tough problem, they can’t get out of it by inventing new spellwork. The audience has no idea what they can do other than what they’ve been directly told, so if they do anything new in a crisis, it will look like a deus ex machina.
For instance, the Patronus Charm is a spell that is critical to the plot of multiple Harry Potter books. It worked well, but it had to be named before it became important to the plot. Readers could not have guessed that Harry might create something like a Patronus, so if it hadn’t been explained in depth, using it at pivotal moments would have felt cheap.
In addition, there are no boundaries on what magic could theoretically do in the Potterverse. That means Rowling doesn’t have any guidelines to keep her from contradicting something she’s already invented or from creating a spell that makes the plot pointless.
Rational: Avatar
In the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender, magic (called bending) is embodied by the four elements of air, water, fire, and earth, plus spiritual energy. With the exception of the Avatar, people who cast magic are only attuned to one of the four main elements. By adopting a specific mentality and pairing that with martial art forms, they can move and manipulate their element.
It’s easy to extrapolate all the basic uses of this magic system. When an earthbender is blocked by a mountain, we know that with enough effort, they could create a tunnel through it. This is true even if we’ve never seen anyone craft a tunnel before. We’ve seen them move and break rock, so it follows that they could make a hole through a mountain.
In The Last Airbender storyline, Waterbending, Firebending, and Earthbending all have elite applications that not all benders can achieve, while air doesn’t. However, we can only identify that it’s missing because the system is logically consistent as a whole, even if it isn’t perfect in every depiction.
Almost all of the magic in Avatar: The Last Airbender is clearly linked to the same rules. For instance, some animals can also cast magic, and they do it pretty much the same way people do. The main exception is “the avatar state,” which isn’t clearly linked to bending. It’s no surprise the avatar state causes plot holes during Avatar: The Legend of Korra.
The Difference
The magic of Avatar feels like the natural result of a different set of physics, whereas the magic of Harry Potter feels like the arbitrary inventions of an author. Occasionally you may want an arbitrary system – it adds humor and entertainment to Harry Potter. However, in most cases a rational magic system works better.
Rational Magic Can Still Be Mysterious
It’s easy to mix up rational magic with what’s often referred to as hard magic. Both Harry Potter and Avatar: The Last Airbender are hard magic systems, because they explain magic and its rules to the audience. The audience must know the rules, because the heroes use magic during the story. While both of these magic systems have mysterious aspects, in general they don’t invoke wonder because they are understood.
Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, on the other hand, use soft magic. Viewpoint characters don’t use magic and the audience doesn’t understand how it operates. It’s mysterious.
While it’s more difficult to tell whether a soft magic system is rational, I suspect Game of Thrones is using a rational magic system. It’s the subtle way magic leans toward fire or ice.* When Jon Snow kills a white walker with Valyrian steel, it makes sense even though we haven’t been told that could happen. That’s because we know dragon glass can kill them and both weapons were forged by dragon flame. Even without understanding the details, it feels like it all fits together. If George R.R. Martin or the show writers lean hard by revealing how it works, I think they’ll reveal something that’s logically consistent.
To keep your magic mysterious like in Game of Thrones, hide how it operates. Most often, your audience should see the effects of magic but not the cause. Obscuring the rules is easier if the cause and effect can be separated by space and time or the cause isn’t directly observable. In Game of Thrones, the red woman throws leaches into a fire, and later several lords die far away. The audience isn’t sure if burning the leaches actually caused these deaths, making it mysterious despite having witnessed the magic ritual first-hand.
Crafting a Basic Framework
The first step is building a metaphysical framework for how and why magic works. The best frameworks have limitations inherent to the way they operate. For instance, if speaking is an essential part of spellcasting, then characters can’t cast spells if they can’t speak. If you choose a framework that is broader and vaguer, you’ll need to add less obvious limitations to it.
To craft your framework, just answer these questions.
What’s the source of magic?
Pick just one source; I’ll discuss how to add variety to your magic system in the next section. Here are four common categories you can consider.
Energy
Many systems treat magic as energy similar to heat, magnetism, electricity, or movement. In many worlds such as Star Wars, this force is generated by living things. It could also be from astral radiation or human emotion.
Energy-based magic is easy to use because it comes with limitations. We know it takes more kinetic energy to move a big rock than a small rock, so we can imagine it requires more magical energy too. Spellcasters can’t blow up planets, because obviously that would take too much energy.
Higher beings
In some magic systems, gods or other powerful beings are the source of all magic. This is harder to work with, because the divine are technically spellcasters themselves, and incredibly powerful ones. You’ll need to set guidelines for how these beings operate so that you can explain why they do or don’t answer prayers whenever they’re asked. For instance, in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Chalion Series, the divine cannot directly influence the world with their magic. They can only work through people that do their will voluntarily.
Substances
In Dune, those who are exposed to spice develop powers over time. In Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Series, characters acquire magic by imbibing small amounts of metals and burning them once they’re consumed. Substances like these make it easy to put limits on the amount of magic used – just limit the substance. However, set guidelines for how people react to exposure. If one person grows wings and another teleports, your system will feel arbitrary.
Shifts in reality
Used by the Matrix and Mage: The Ascension, some magic systems are based on the idea that reality is more malleable than it seems, allowing some to bend it out of shape. If you use this source, decide why reality is so malleable – is everyone in a dream or a virtual reality game? Your answer could have huge ramifications for your world.
These systems usually adopt limitations from physics, even though physics is no longer a limiting factor. In the Matrix, lifting something huge is harder than lifting something small. Technically, the limitation is actually the mind’s belief that lifting huge objects is difficult. That works for just Neo, but if you have many spellcasters over long periods of time, someone will be able to smash two planets together. Magic that powerful would leave a large fingerprint on the world, and if you don’t avoid ultra-powerful characters, it can also break your plot. Or just feel ridiculous.
How is it accessed and directed?
It’s not enough to have a source of magic. That source has to be available to a spellcaster, and that spellcaster needs to direct it to accomplish specific goals. The source should give you an idea for how it might become available. A substance can be traded on the market, gods can be prayed to, and individuals might be sensitive to magical energy – or maybe everyone has machines that do it all for them. Don’t be afraid to try something novel.
Directing magic can involve a range of activities, but it commonly includes these aspects:
- Thoughts & will: Character thoughts provide an easy method of directing spells, but unfortunately it comes with few limitations to keep spellcasters from summoning a deus ex machina.
- Communication: Characters might need to communicate what they want to the gods or program it into a computer. This adds the opportunity for translation errors or for results that technically fit what they said but aren’t what they wanted.
- Recipes: Perhaps characters almost never ad lib their desires; instead they follow specific directions hoping for specific and hopefully reliable results. Rituals generally fall under this category.
The more elaborate your direction method is, the harder you’ll need to work to make it feel rational. If a character casts spells with a combination of substances, dance moves, and symbols drawn in charcoal, assign a role to each component. You should understand why some spells have symbols in common but different dance moves. Just knowing how everything works can go a long way.
What are the constraints of the system?
Now it’s time to decide why magic can’t do anything and everything the spellcaster wants, whenever they want.
First, think through what magic is capable of doing in a theoretical best case scenario. It could range from absolutely anything to a single effect such as moving objects or pausing time. In Brandon Sanderson’s Warbreaker, magic is powered by a life force known as “breath.” Sanderson could have made breath do anything, but instead it’s mostly limited to animating objects and improving the caster’s senses. It can’t summon rain or make someone invisible, for instance. Limiting what magic can theoretically do will dramatically cut down the number of plot-breaking scenarios you might have to deal with.
Second, look through all the essential pieces of spell creation and casting, and think how the casting process might fail at each step. For instance, let’s say magic is powered by a substance found within the soil. Humans access it by eating a special plant that bio-accumulates it. Once eaten, the magical substance builds up in their systems until they focus their will to cast magic. Here’s how this system might break down:
- Availability of substance: Access to magic requires pairing the magical substance in the ground with specific vegetation. Only some areas would have the substance, and those places could have the wrong climate for the plant, or the ground could have been salted to keep anything from growing.
- Edibility of plant: Perhaps the plant isn’t good for you. People could get sick by eating a lot of it at once or by eating a lot over the years. It could taste terrible and perish quickly. Drying or pickling could weaken the effect.
- Amount in system: Before anyone can cast a spell, they need to have eaten the plant previously, building up magic in their system. The power of their spell would be limited by how much of the plant they’d eaten since the last time they did magic. If they run out, they have to eat and then digest the plant before they can do any more.
- Strength of will: A person’s ability to cast a spell could be compromised if they’re tired, drunk, or simply feel conflicted about their task. To make the spell work, they might have to understand the scientific details of what they want their magic to accomplish instead of giving it vague goals.
A long list of constraints will make it much easier to craft conflicts in your story. Something as seemingly insignificant as a casting time that’s five seconds longer has a huge impact on whether mages can handle unexpected problems. If spellcasters can run out of magic, it’ll be easy to put them in a tight spot when you need to.
Adding Variety
If rational magic systems only had a basic framework, they might get dull. Here’s a couple ways to mix it up while retaining a consistent feel.
Splitting into categories
The elemental magic of Avatar is a great example of splitting the same form of magic into different types. Most often, the source of magic itself comes in different types that create different effects. However, you can also experiment with different techniques for accessing and directing the magic, each with upsides and downsides.
To avoid adding a sense of arbitrariness, your choice of categories must feel natural. Here’s what you need to think about.
Completeness
When you look at all your categories together, you shouldn’t find any large gaps where a category should be, and two categories shouldn’t be unusually similar. For instance, if you have chaotic magic, dark magic, and lawful magic, your audience will wonder where the light magic is. If you actually have light magic and you’re just not telling them until later, then great; you’ve foreshadowed without even trying. Otherwise, your categories will feel contrived.
You can get away with a strange assortment if you have mechanics that explain it. Let’s say powers are granted by a changing lineup of gods, and the ocean goddess has three children that control the wind, waves, and depths. Then it may not feel weird that there isn’t a god specifically of dirt, because the earth goddess hasn’t had children yet.
If you’re having trouble, you can say there are many more categories but knowledge of them has been lost.
Symmetricality
While your categories wouldn’t be any fun if they were identical, they do need consistency. Generally that means their strengths and weaknesses will be roughly equivalent. You could use a rock-paper-scissors relationship where earth beats air, but air beats water, water beats fire, and fire beats earth. Or you could simply say that air is good for dodging, while earth is good for blocking. You wouldn’t add that fire is good for creative thinking, because that wouldn’t fit.
Again, you can have variance if there are rules that explain it. Let’s say magic is generated by the vibration of continental plates, and each continental plate vibrates at its own frequency, creating different effects. The size of those continental plates and their placement on the planet would be an arbitrary effect of nature, and so the magic they generate might reflect those arbitrary characteristics.
If you’re at a loss, take a page from Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series. To make an arbitrary assortment of abilities feel like they fit together, he gave them a strong theme. Each ability corresponds with role in a gang of thieves. The list includes a “thug” who burns pewter and becomes stronger; a “tineye” who burns tin and enhances their senses; a “soother” who burns brass and can calm others’ emotions; a “seeker” that burns bronze and can identify other magic works; and a “smoker” that blocks a seeker within a certain radius. Since the main character of the series starts as a member of a gang of thieves, the choice of theme is very appropriate.
Adding special abilities
Naturally, you’ll want a few people in your setting with powers that are unusual among magic workers. You can have that, too, while still retaining rationality.
Extrapolation
Start by looking for further implications of what you’ve already established. How might someone with an unusual background or extraordinary dedication take magic either a step further or a step in a new direction? What unusual methods and applications might they attempt?
In Avatar, most benders can only manipulate pure water, earth, air, and fire. However, a few benders can bend their element when it’s in a different form or less pure. There are Waterbenders that Bloodbend, Firebenders that shoot lightning, and the occasional Earthbender that Metalbends.
In my example of magic that is acquired by consuming a plant, a clever alchemist might distill and concentrate the plant down to an elixir that is digested more quickly. Someone could gain double the magic in half the time. On the other hand, there could be a group of people allergic to the plant. Eating it makes them very sick, but because of this immune reaction, they can cast more powerful spells.
Exception
Your story may also include a chosen one that’s extra special. To give them an exceptional ability that stands out from the masses, change or break one rule you’ve established for your magic system. Only one. Once you examine all the implications of this change, you’ll discover their powers are different indeed.
In Avatar, there is one person every generation who violates the rule that people can bend only one element. This person, the Avatar, bends all four plus spirit energy. Because the setting is divided into nations that correspond with the elements, the Avatar is the only person who symbolically belongs to all the nations.
In my plant-based system, there could be a lineage with the biological adaptation to absorb the magical substance directly, without using the plant as an intermediary. An entire category of limitations would no longer apply to them. Magic would be cheaply acquired from soil the plant can’t grow in, and they wouldn’t have to worry about getting sick from overeating it.
Further Reading
For more inspiration and guidance in creating your magic system, I recommend these articles and resources.
How to Create an Eclectic Magic System – For those who want casting to look or work a certain way, I created another method that starts with the casting and works backwards.
Creating a Magic System for Superpowers – If the magic you’re creating varies from person to person, this article is for you.
Four Ways to Limit Magic & Technology – Those limits are important! Here are more ideas for them.
Know How Your Magic Works – Here we discuss considerations outside the scope of this article, such as the effect magic has on society.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality – This fun fan fiction explores rational explanations for how the Potterverse might work.
Brandon Sanderson is fantastic at crafting magic systems. He has three great articles on building them, named after what he calls his three laws. You can also read his books to see his systems in action; personally I recommend Elantris.
Sanderson’s First Law
Sanderson’s Second Law
Sanderson’s Third Law
Last, here’s a fun chart showing the details of magic systems in the most popular works.
If you think about it, you’ll realize there’s no reason not to have a rational system. You can make it mysterious just by hiding how it operates. While it can be fun to have wacky spells, wouldn’t it be even cooler if you could reveal how your wacky spells all click together? The only downside is that these systems require thought – thought that will make your setting stronger.
9 Types of Magic Systems: From Elemental Abilities to Magitech
Here we take a look at several types of magic systems for speculative fiction authors to explore!
•Last Updated Nov 16, 2023 https://www.campfirewriting.com/learn/systems-of-magicIf you’re interested in writing fantasy (or, to a lesser extent, science fiction), you’ve likely considered building a magic system.
Truly, magic is one of the few consistencies across nearly all works within the genre. It’s such a ubiquitous element, in fact, that many writers (myself included) start their journey into fantasy by devising a magic system.
You might be wondering, then, “Where do I start?”
The Many Branches of Magic
Like most writing processes, there isn’t really a correct place to begin designing a magic system. A common, and efficient, place to start, however, is by choosing what type of magic system(s) you wish to employ, such as:
- Nature-based magic: water, earth, fire, air, and everything in between.
- Divination magic: see beyond sight and peer through time and space.
- Conjuring magic: move objects through space over any distance (bamf anything anywhere!).
- Psychic magic: master the world of the mind (and bring new meaning to picking someone’s brain).
- Life and death magic: tap into the very forces of life, death, and undeath with this surprisingly versatile collection.
- Animal- or creature-exclusive magic: some creatures just do it better.
- Magitech systems: the blurring lines of sorcery and science give magic a next-gen, high-tech flair.
- Eclectic magic: it doesn’t have to be “real” magic to have a real effect.
- Uncommon magic systems: the unsung heroes of fantasy magic.
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Note: type here is a discussion of the color, flavor, and driving mechanics binding multiple magic systems together by theme.
The type differs from the measure of a magic system’s hardness—which indicates how thoroughly defined its rules and limitations are—and whether the world is high or low magic—identifying the prevalence and frequency of magic in the setting.
We’ve put together this list of nine types of magic systems found within fantasy and science fiction. This is not an exhaustive list, however, as there are many types of magic in fantasy fiction.
Bear in mind that these are literary definitions, not scientific ones. The categories included and the magic systems arranged within them are subject to shift as the landscape of fantasy fiction continues to evolve.
1. Nature-Based Magic
The first type of magic system is also the most common. Though often parsed out into their own ecosystems, nature-based magic systems are those which manipulate the forces and elements of nature. The following magics fall under the umbrella of nature-based magic:
- Elemental magic manipulates the basic, often classical, components of nature. Typically, this is air, earth, fire, water, and sometimes wood, though it can be expanded to accommodate other elements like metal (see Mistborn for a strong model of metal magic in use). Examples abound but the most notable may be found in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
- Floramancy and Mycomancy, or plant and fungus manipulation, communicate with plant life and fungal growth to harness their attributes. This can range from releasing biochemicals and pheromones into the air to convincing roots, vines, and branches to directly attack the caster’s foes. They may even tap into the “wood wide web” to gain insight across great distances. Examples are infrequent, though Poison Ivy from Batman is capable of all botanical manipulations.
- Classically, alchemy is the transmutation of one compound to another. The French scribe and legendary alchemist Nicolas Flamel became famous posthumously for the rumored discovery of the Philosopher’s Stone which was said to transmute the nature of death itself. More commonly, Medieval alchemists sought ways to turn common substances, like wood or stone, into gold and other valuable materials. The more familiar depiction of alchemy in fantasy, however, is the mixing of various liquid chemicals to create potions and poisons for healing, harming, and enhancing the imbiber.
- Weather magic combines the elements of air and water to alter the weather. Whether calling and quelling storms or tweaking atmospheric pressure and temperature, weather mages should be considered valuable members of society. Those using this magic would be able to provide rainfall and sunshine precisely as needed for optimal crop yield, swift and exact winds for sailing, and conjure inclement conditions for enemy armies to tromp through.
2. Divination Magic
To put it plainly, divination magic is that which gains the user (or divines) insight into the unknown across time and space, such as the future, past, or across great distances and even dimensions.
Classically, the suffix -mancy can be applied to any concept used for divination magic, like pyromancy for fire gazing and hydromancy for scrying. In popular usage, however, this isn’t typically how the nomenclature works. In the case of pyromancy and hydromancy, both are commonly used to denote more fanciful forms of their respective concepts (i.e. manipulating fire with the former and water or ice with the latter), this isn’t divination magic, however.
Often considered a fairly niche system in literature and gaming, divination magics are deeply rooted in real-world history, whose concepts can be added to an existing magic system to effectively diversify its casters’ arcane tools.
Typically, divination requires a medium of some sort like tarot cards, flocks of birds, knuckle bones, a clear pool of water, or copious amounts of corpses. There were even some truly bizarre forms of divination, like alphitomancy which was used to determine a guilty party by how they digested a piece of blessed bread or cake. Yum…
While these are interesting systems in their own right, they are essentially the magical equivalent of entering a construction site with only a hammer in your toolbelt: all you can do is hit things. For example, if you add a dash of divination magic to your nature-based system, your mages can do more for your story than merely huck fireballs or shape ice sculptures with a flick and swish.
3. Conjuring Magic
Systems that summon nouns (people, places, or things) to the mage’s location, or into existence, are conjuring magics. From Mage Hand to Find Familiar, conjuration is more than the mere teleportation of objects (though hopping through time and space is hella rad).
In worlds like those that Dungeons & Dragons players dwell within, summoning magic can be used to bring forth a veritable menagerie of ghosts, goblins, ghouls, gods, demons, and all manner of other nasty, nice, or niche beasties. Perhaps the magic teleports the summoned creature directly to the caster’s side over any distance. Or, maybe the mage tears open a rift in reality for the summoned to saunter through.
Conjuring magics may also be used to teleport the caster themself through time and space, whether it be short-range teleporting (often called blinking), passing through worlds and dimensions at will, or creating portals that blend one reality with another. Supernatural transportation of objects is the conjurer’s bread and butter.
Popular examples are especially present in gaming as almost every summoner class is a conjurer at heart. While there are a number of magic systems at play, the Dishonored games feature a handful of conjuring abilities for the player to make use of. Blink, Displace, and Far Reach, Devouring Storm, Shadow Kill, and Mesmerize are all abilities that could fall under this magic system. The Outsider himself makes ample use of conjuration by teleporting in and out of the tangible world and yeeting Corvo or Emily into the Void every few missions.
4. Psychic Magic
Magic of the mind, psychic magic systems harness the spellcaster’s mental abilities to affect worlds within the human, and non-human, psyche. Dreams, perceptions, consciousness, and subconsciousness are the domains of psychics where they hold sway over the thoughts and emotions of others.
Often called telepaths in science fiction and enchanters in fantasy, psychic mages exert a subtle influence over others.
- Perhaps they push and pull at the emotions of a mob, dampening or enflaming their ire.
- Maybe the psychic enters the dreamworld of a politician to influence a major decision they’re about to make.
- They could even quicken their own perception in combat to better anticipate attacks while simultaneously slowing their opponent’s reflexes.
- Given that time is merely a perception, they could also effectively quicken, slow, or stop time entirely for individuals or groups.
It might not be a simple matter of having the mental capacity to use psychic magic. They could need focusing agents like talismans, runes, sigils, or places of power like standing stones or faerie circles. A ritual may be required to push their mind past the mundane and into the ethereal. They may even need a spiritual guide while walking through the astral world of the mind.
The telepathic characters found in the X-Men franchise serve as adequate examples of psychic magic. Both Professor Charles Xavier and Jean Grey are extremely powerful telepaths that can read and control people’s minds, communicate across great distances, and even enter the astral plane.
5. Life and Death Magic
More commonly called necromancy, these systems harness life forces to restore, ravage, and reanimate living and formerly living beings. Oh yes, necromancy is more than just zombie armies and skeletal motifs.
Put plainly, life-and-death magic systems explore the forces of life, death, and undeath. Necromancers learn to manipulate the energy that animates all living things. It is primarily a discipline of transference.
How these systems take shape in your world is entirely up to you. If life force is an abundant resource—an ambient energy moving through and between all things—healing can be performed simply by tapping into that bounty and channeling it into a wounded individual. If, however, it exists solely within living beings, healing will take a transference of that energy, which will likely require vital sacrifice.
The most popular display of necromancy is the reanimation of the dead. Ranging from mindless drones to genuine resurrection, you’ll have to determine the nature of reanimation and how it works in your world.
Ask yourself these two questions:
- Is the necromancer in control of the beings they raise?
- How much of the reanimated being’s consciousness remains?
A note on natural limitations: resurrection is exciting but it can easily break a world’s logic (what does anyone have to fear if the nearest necromancer can simply restore them back to life?). Consider serious limitations and consequences if you wish to include this element in your magic system.
Blood magic is another aspect of this type of system that allows the caster to draw power from their own or others’ blood (see Dragon Age video games). In worlds where this magic exists, you’ll likely see it treated as unnatural and taboo, even by necromantic standards. Which brings up an interesting philosophical question: If blood is a naturally occurring substance, why would we see its use as unnatural?
Aptly named, The Necromancer’s House by Christopher Buehlman unsurprisingly features a number of interesting necromantic applications. The titular necromancer’s house of horrors features a closet full of zip-on skin-changer animal pelts, a dog-turned-wicker-man automaton with a Salvador Dalí painting for a head, formerly vegetable zombie doppelgangers, and many, many conversations with dead people.
6. Animal- or Creature-Exclusive Magic
Some magic is only available to specific creatures based either upon their biology or something innate in their species.
Most often we see this in elves who are typically interpreted to be magical by nature. Conversely, dwarves are frequently depicted as having little to no magical ability. We can reach farther than this do-they-or-don’t-they have innate magical affinity though.
Some creatures may have magic specific to them that no other creature has access to. Common examples would include:
- Vampires who can meld into the shadows, shapeshift into a bat or wolf, and compel others to comply with their bidding.
- Dragons’ firebreath is typically interpreted as biological but potential humanoid offspring might maintain a magical connection to their ancestors with their own arcane morning breath.
- Unicorns are frequently given glitter-flavored, deus ex machina magic that can heal anything and everything by sneezing a rainbow.
- Sirens, and other aquatic nixies, can enchant weary passersby with a liquid melody. Just don’t ask what they do with their victims after.
It can be less conventional than this, of course. We see a number of examples from D&D lore. The Genasi, offspring of genies and mortals, are the humanoid embodiment of classical elements; and, aasimar and teiflings are the half-breed product of celestials and infernals, respectively, who maintain powers of light and shadow according to their parentage.
This isn’t exclusive to sapient creatures either. Magical animals can abound, bringing an element of chaos to the world.
- Ember foxes bound through the forest leaving a trail of fiery destruction in their wake.
- Water horses poison the rivers, ponds, and lakes they wade through, killing all that once drew life from their bounties.
- Thunderbirds bring roaring tempests upon the plain with terrible thunderheads seen for miles.
Even if your magic system operates in one way, a magical species can use their blood-given powers to subvert established rules and limitations.
7. Magitech Systems
Dwelling on the borderlands between magic and science, magitech systems see arcane energies harnessed using advanced technology.
Having no need of a mage at the helm, magitech is, at its core, magic fused with technology.
- Perhaps airships in your world don’t solely rely on aeronautical technology but also by using captured air elementals who manipulate the wind to keep the ship aloft.
- Your evil empire could outfit its death knights in “mechromancer suits” that absorb the souls of the slain, exponentially increasing their suits’ power as they consume those souls for fuel.
- The internet in your setting could be a bustling postal service in the spirit world where a complex network of ghosts ferry digital messages across the globe (no wonder we have to pay for data).
There are a number of avenues you can take wherein mages are directly commanding magitech, however. For example, a technomancer might be able to, innately or through cybernetics, communicate with computers to hack private databases or bypass security systems. These wireless wizards see the ebb and flow of electromagnetic current no differently than fantasy mages view the tides of magic.
Speaking of cybernetics, transhumanists (commonly called cyborgs) replace parts of their body with enhanced, mechanized analogs that grant them specialized powers. While this is technology and science at its metallic heart, one needn’t look further than Cyberpunk 2077 to see that with enough cyberware or “chrome,” one can effectively cast magic.
Some worlds also maintain unique substances that, paired with the right technology, can unlock incredible power. In the Bioshock video games, plasmids are serums crafted from processed ADAM, a special biochemical substance that introduces modified stem cells into the body, allowing for genetic modifications and mutation. In effect, these give individuals magical powers (though they also drive them insane with overuse).
Though the line between science and magic blurs here, it’s helpful to remember that, viewed through a literary lens, magic is questions with fewer answers, science is answers with fewer questions.
8. Eclectic Magic
Difficult to pin down, eclectic magic derives from a broad range of sources and doesn’t always have a direct or tangible effect on the world. We’re talking about everything from folk magic to parlor tricks.
These may only hold power in the minds of their practitioners or the eyes of their witnesses. But since magic is the art of producing an effect from nothing, it is the beings that believe these magics to be real that can have an effect on the world, as a result.
Folk traditions have long held a wide variety of magical practices across all cultures throughout the world. European practitioners of this type of magic are generally called “cunning folk” though dozens of variations were used in different languages. More often than not, folk magic dealt in the healing of harms, lifting of curses, and warding off evil spirits.
It’s worth noting here that “folk magic” is a modern concept and that those living at the time simply saw this as medicine (whether physical or spiritual). You might also see cunning folk handing out charms and talismans, crafting potions and poultices (the famous love potion), and warning against the dangers of the fair folk and their faerie circles.
Conversely, illusionists use sleight of hand to astound audiences. While in fiction this can be used to mask true magic (as is the case in Christopher Priest’s The Prestige and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern), it is itself a magic system in its own right. It maintains a magical effect (the audience is astounded) and rules and limitations (the spell is broken if the audience discovers the mechanics behind the illusion).
Stage magic and parlor tricks may simply be used for entertainment but, in a literary sense, that doesn’t make it any less magical. Nor does it always have to be mere amusement.
9. Uncommon Magic Systems
All of the types of magic systems detailed above have been categorized by theme and/or mechanic. However, they are also arranged this way because they have the benefit of more frequent appearances in science fiction and fantasy literature.
We grouped this final category of magic systems together because we believe they haven’t been given frequent opportunities to shine, though all could be categorized into any of the above types. Let’s review a handful of uncommon magic systems:
- Color magic, not be confused with color-themed magic (as with the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks), manipulates light in the visual spectrum to create potent optical illusions. It could also be used to blind an opponent but this would be considered a crude application by most respectable photokinetics.
- Sound magic amplifies, hushes, directs, and generates sound waves. The vibrations in sound waves can be lethal at the right frequencies, passing through solid objects and cover with ease. A bard might also have fun with an arcane amp and autotune.
- While Time magic, or “wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff,” isn’t uncommon in SFF (look no further than Doctor Who for an excellent example), the ability to manipulate it directly is. Another famous doctor by the name of Strange has given it a fair shake as well recently. Time is fun to play with but can break your world’s logic very quickly. Limitations, consequences, and clearly defined rules are, arguably, more important here than with any other system. But, you know, have fun!
- Egoic magic enhances the physical attributes of the caster (The Witcher's decoctions do exactly this). Need to increase your strength? Cast the spell. Need a speed boost? Cast the spell. Need to react quicker? Cast the spell. Need to—you get the idea.
- Beast speech isn’t so much underrepresented as it is impossible to categorize. Is it nature-based since animals are vital parts of nature? Is it a form of enchantment or psychic magic? Depends on the core mechanic of your magic system. Is it simply a language to be learned? I don’t have an answer, but I sure would like to know if my cat intends to harm me or not.
- Manufactured magic differs from magitech in that the magical item being mass-produced isn’t technology, but a simple object. Think glass baubles worn as jewelry that provides enhancements to vitality or charisma, or literal mood-altering rings sold at a kiosk in the mall (Sing it with me: “Every kurse begins with Kay.”).
- Nothingness magic is the manipulation of the very concept of nothingness. Not quite shadow magic, this system would allow the caster to conjure fields of pure void to shield or consume. It doesn’t get much edgier than this.
Types of Magic Systems: Final Thoughts
The most important thing to bear in mind when choosing what type of magic system you want to design is what most excites you.
- Does the hiss of fireballs steaming across a battlefield raise your blood?
- Have you only ever wanted to talk to animals and hear them talk back?
- Would you love nothing more than to hop between worlds at will?
Design the magic system you want to design. This article was only intended to give you ideas for what you could do, not what you should do. Take into account your world or story’s theme, any philosophical questions you’d like to ask, and remember any important rules and limitations as you build, but your magic should excite you.
Your magic system should drive you to create your own magic on the page (or screen).
added by me
PDF LINK TO CHARLIE JANES ANDERS MAGIC SYSTEMS CHARTJPG LINK TO CHARLIE JANES ANDERS MAGIC SYSTEMS CHART - ZOOMABLE
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2605.13 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3968 days ago & DAD = 622 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
