I said I would describe a magic system in a daily megathread and forgot (well, lost all confidence in the idea). But maybe a thread would be better for this conversation.

I also don't wish to step on anyone's actual beliefs, though practitioners can comment if they have any ideas.

A couple of easy examples:

  • Harry Potter: In this, magic is largely inherited by individuals, though it can be randomly brought in and removed from bloodlines. It does seem to give some level of fatigue when used, but honestly not that much. It does create a caste of "superior" humans by birth, humans who could never be poor and can arbitrarily exact violence on lesser beings. Even their emotions are more powerful than ordinary humans. The books don't really touch on this and our PoV character is almost a "rightful king", inheritor of vast wealth and magical artifacts.
  • Star Wars: This magic is loosely based on buddhism, though the magic itself seems to be more related to living beings (e.g. a river doesn't necessarily have karmic value unless that's what the episode of The Clone Wars is about). Nonetheless, if you squint, you can still see some of the language of "the fundamental interconnectedness of all things". It does, however, seem to have a severe hereditary component. Sometimes, you are just a poo person. In my head canon, the Dark Side is the extreme expression of self, at some point even considering one's own emotions as separate to one's self, and the light side is an acceptance of being a part of the universe. However, I feel like "grey jedi" is more popular amongst the fandom. idk. For some reason, being either very connected or very disconnected from the universe gives you phenomenal magic powers to enact your will, as long as you were born with the power.

Suggest your own short description and maybe an analysis.

I have posted about my magic system before, designed for a little dieselpunk British occupation of the Ottoman Empire, where various explorers are doing biblical archaeology. The players (this was for an RPG) are working for a British industrialist/oil guy who wants to find the tree of life and live forever. Over the course of their adventure, they find various echoes of magic that used to exist in the world but is slowly withering away. The history of magic, they find, reflects their current situation where capital is slowly strangling the world and every bit of will and life from it.

Notes on my magic:

  • Magic comes from people and relationships between people.
  • What it specifically does for most people is nebulous. Probably something like making your hearth a little warmer or a sense of which soil is more fertile? Or maybe something relational? Haven't thought about it much.
  • Magic by the ruling class is stolen. They are born with their own, just like everyone else. However, through exploitation, violence, and trickery, they steal other people's magic (or souls). This gives them a lot more power to do mythological acts, live forever, and pass their stolen magic to their children.
  • To pass magic on to one's children, you have to have some yourself, so it can be nurtured and grow. However, once it has been stolen, this no longer happens. The world's population now is entirely populated by such descendants. The ancient gods that the players encounter refer to the players (and all modern people) as "hollow ones". In the gods eyes, modern people are useless for their goals of achieving immortality.
  • This is also an analogy of how many ancient cities are barely habitable now, as the over-farming has increased the salt in the land to the point where the cities collapsed. As once fertile land was over-exploited, so have people.
  • The gods, having exhausted their populations of magical energy, eventually turn on each other in a scramble to stay alive and in power. This allows the common people to drive them out, causing some of the large migrations of antiquity as the gods and their lackeys flee in one direction or another.
  • This history is eventually forgotten over thousands of years, but is still present in the surviving gods themselves sleeping to conserve energy, transforming themselves into stone or bronze statues or whatever, and some artifacts they've imbued with power and given to their lackeys.
  • The last most active god is Yahweh, who ate his wife Asherah as they fled south into modern Arabia.

I'm not sure if I want magic to return to the world at the end of the story, or the British benefactor to find the tree of life withered and broken. If it does return, it should be able to spread (somewhat thinly) throughout the world through non-exploitative relationships.

It is also very soul-like, but seems unnecessary for life as we know it.

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Part of the reason the Valar sent the Wizards to help Middle Earth is that the Vala are so big, metaphysically, that when they go to war they inevitably cause a vast amount of destruction. They could just go over the sea and squish Sauron, but it would come at enormous "the mountains were shattered and the rivers ran backwards" cost.

    The Wizards were a much more subtle instrument. Gandalf's main magical power is nurturing hope and a spirit of resistance. He keeps people going, builds connections, and makes sure the right people get the right knowledge at the right time. Saruman was supposed to take a leading role in opposing Sauron, but he lost faith and was seduced by the idea of taking power for himself. When Gandalf died fighting Durin's Bane he presumably ended up in the Halls of Mandos like all other immortal beings (maia and elves mostly) do. Technically I think any of the immortal beings can just walk out of the Halls of Mandos, and most do after a while, but Gandalf probably got VIP treatment and was moved to the front of the line. When he returns to Middle Earth as Gandalf the White he breaks Saruman's spell over King Theoden and undermine's him in several other important ways, culminating with the Ent's assault on Isengard. As near as I can tell, since the Wizard's greatest power was inspiring people, once Saruman was visibly humbled and his armies broken, much of his magical power was also broken and Gandalf was able to easily overthrow him. Saruman and Grima then go to the Shire to bother the hobbits, who iirc ultimately kill them. It's part of a theme about evil being self destructive and unable to create, and about the world becoming less magical overtime and the evil villains being commensurately less powerful and more pathetic. Melkor gives way to Sauron, Sauron is followed by Saruman, and when Sauron is ultimately destroyed by one of the most wretched creatures in Middle Earth Saruman is reduced to oppressing Hobbits before finally being done it.

    I'm not 100% on if i'm just reading this in to the story, but i think a lot of the "magic" in lotr is the elves and wizards just having a vastly deeper and more complete understanding of the world than most edain. When the elves build things like Lothlorien or make their invisibility cloaks they're not breaking or bending the rules - they just understand the rules at a much deeper level than edain so what they do looks inexplicable. There's a fan theory that Legolas can see over the horizon because when the Valar made Arda round in the wake of Ar-Pharazon's disastrous attempt to invade the undying lands they only made it round for men - elves could still see the world as it truly was, hence not being effected by the curvature of the earth as men were.