Either that or a occasional guide for someone important but not like I’ll destroy everything situation
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Yes but probably only internal unless two people can agree to an external rp
My thoughts on what should NOT be allowed in the magic system, along with why:
- long-term time travel. Going back a minute or a day might be fine, but anything more would effectively constitute an IC retcon mechanic.
- dimensional travel. Having other planes is common in many other fantasy canons, but allowing them here would open an immense plane-filled can of worms unless we go through the colossal task of fabricating a standardized planes system on top of Terra Aurora.
My thoughts on what SHOULD be allowed, for either GMUs or anybody:
- Destructive spells with a power ceiling roughly equivalent to either a ~155mm HE artillery shell for non-GMUs or a ~2kt tactical nuclear weapon for GMUs.
- Enchanted items, potions, curses, hallowed/enchanted land, and other long-term magical effects.
- All the usual sources of supernatural effects and powers, including arcane/wizard style, divine/priest style, and nature/druid style as well as maybe others.
- Typical magical powers, balanced for non-GMU and GMU: flight/levitation, invisibility, destructive spells, transmutation, teleportation possibly, necromancy, etc.
These are just my initial ideas; open to suggestions for additions, cuts, edits, etc.
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I would like to add conjuration (summoning) spells to that list
We should make a power scale for magic.
That would give us a quantifiable way of determining what magic is most powerful, and what magic should be limited.
We could call it The Sorcery Scale
I don’t think we are ready for that task just yet
Abra Cadabra?
What?
I dunno, this just has been silent for a while
I’m in study hall right now, so here’s my comprehensive list on how basic magic should be I guess.
The Sorcery Scale: Index of how strong a mage has to be to use a magic type, with one being limited or little-to-no training, and 10 being GMU status.
Basic types of magic:
Elemental Magic:
The user harnesses the power of their homeland’s natural or magic-induced elements to acomplish a goal (attack, terraform, escape, etc…)
Sorcery Scale: 1 or above, with strength scaling with index
Conjuring Magic:
The user reaches through space to summon an object or creature (consisting of a small enough size) to their location .
Sorcery Scale: 5 or above, with power only changing at level 10
Necromancy:
The user imbues the life force of themself or a subject into a corpse, bringing it to undeath.
Sorcery Scale: 7 or above, with higher levels bringing greater intelligence and self awareness to the risen dead, potentially even to the point of completely restoring its mind
Imbuing Magic:
The user harnesses any type of magic to apply it to an inanimate object. This can be used to make rune stones, enchant items, or bring golems to life.
Sorcery Scale: 1-9, with power scaling with the index.
Amendment:
This adds Healing Magic to my previous list
#NOTE - The subject of extra power scaling by groups of sorcerers has been brought up. Since it’s still in discussion, I’m keeping those stats out, but if idea for basic magic is excepted, expect the final list to include those extra power-scaling numbers.
Healing Magic:
The user harnesses the ambient magic around them to heal the physical wounds of their target.
Sorcery Scale: 1-10, with the time and effort required shortening with each level.
I’m talking about something similar to say a coven of witches where together their powers are multiplied and reach the power of a GMU collectively where alone they would be normal spellcasters
That’s one of the things that got brought up in the discord. That would be something that could work well with my “Sorcery Scale”.
in not so sure about the scale
I get what your saying, since I keep forgetting this is soft magic, but I feel like there should be some kind of power measurement system
Here’s another idea for how we could make categories of magic, based off of my own observations of a variety of different canons. The categories are more of an OOC “this is a grouping of spells with similar effects that can be judged/balanced in a similar manner” classification than an IC “this is a school of magic in Aurora” classification.
-Destructive magic
Not necessarily only destructive, but stuff like Fireball and Chain Lightning should go here. Generally, anything that has the primary intended purpose of acting as a combat weapon.
-Transmutation
Turn things into other things, or modify the properties of things without changing their base form. Polymorph, spells that turn materials into other ones, etc.
-Summoning
Anything that creates a tangible object from nothing or summons one from somewhere else. Summon (Minion) spells, bound weapons, Create Water, etc.
-Necromancy
Make dead things into not dead but not alive and also still sort of dead things. Pretty self-explanatory.
-Healing
Repair injuries, cure diseases, remove curses, etc. Also quite self-explanatory.
-Enchantment
Infuse objects, living things, or people with magic in order to create magic items, golems, sorcerers, horrifying magical abominations, etc. More temporary effects like Fire Sword would also go here.
-Travel
Teleportation, Fly, Speed-ups, and other mobility enhancements.
-Utility
Weird miscellaneous stuff like “Clean the Dishes” or “Sweep My Floors” as well as more serious spells like Telekinesis that have very broad usage.
-Watching and Communication
Scrying, Telepathy, Send Message, and other spells that let you use magic to play NSA or email people.
Categories not final; I’ll probably need to add or modify some of them.
You cover a much wider range than I did, but I feel like with this list the vast majority of spells would be in the destruction category. I mean, the same still applies to mine, but I was a little more specific for my equivalent of that. Just food for thought.
Dang, soft magic is harder to write than I thought it would be
It can be more interesting if you add a risk to your spells such as the great green realm is for mine
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Attaching a price or measure of risk to spellcasting is indeed a good way to make it more interesting, I believe that the precise nature of this risk/price would be best if left up to the discretion of the individual roleplayer; that way, it can be tailored to a specific nation’s lore and allow maximum freedom in deciding exactly how your nation uses and interacts with magic.
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A functional framework:
Aurora Base Rules
Section: Magic
Gather all IC information regarding the existence of magic [systems, uses, users] in each users lore.
1-I A pinned “Registry of Base Rules”, there should be a a sub-section for “Registry of Magic”, updated on a 1-3 month basis.Determine Rules of Magic Interactions based off of information provided in (1).
Determine the bounds of Magic in regards to physical laws of reality.
3-I Physical laws of reality are to be in the same “Registry of Base Rules” with its own sub-section.
3-II Physical laws of reality are not to mimic real-world physics but may take inspiration from real-world guesswork regarding laws of the universe, particularly from the medieval period.
Side-note:
I plan to have an IC character from Veehlill gather a grimoire containing the “Physical Laws of Reality”, composed of IC artifacts and documents he found while travelling the world. [In OOC terms, this means that it’s a collaborative project].
No time estimate on when this will be complete, though.
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