Magic Systems

[Patriotic Kaz]

Maybe.... Zelazny has a story in which Jack the Ripper is the savior of man!

[sortitus]

So, answer me truly. Am I a bad person?

No way! I think Dinosaur Comics had a strip about gaining the power of everything you eat, but it was a little less creepy and more "I've eaten so many steaks, I have the strength of five cows."

I'm all for serial killers as main characters! Heck, the MC in my life is a serial killer!

[Plasman]

i like it Valkynphyre.  very simple, but a lot of possibilities.  and i don't think ur a bad person. the main character in the story i'm writing right now is becomes suicidal halfway through it.

[Ari54]

I have One I'm ok with sharing.

Cannibalism. You eat human muscle, you get stronger. You eat a human eye, your vision increases. The amount by which your abilities increase is directly proportional to how  'fresh' the meat is.

Often, in their wills people will bequeath body parts to their kin.

Simple, yet creepy.

I think what I like most about this is that it gives me the opportunity to create a serial killer who is a hero.


So, answer me truly. Am I a bad person?

You're not a bad person, but you may be a horror writer.

[mtlhddoc2]

Cannibalism Magic is not much different than feruchemy, to a degree (from a "horror" standpoint anyway)

[Ari54]

Cannibalism Magic is not much different than feruchemy, to a degree (from a "horror" standpoint anyway)

Except from the part where you're eating bits of other people who you may even have killed yourself.

[Argent]

It's a lot more like Hemalurgy.

[Andrew the Great]

Pretty sure they meant to say hemalurgy. Otherwise, they wouldn't have mentioned the horror standpoint. I don't recall Feruchemy ever being associated with horror.

Frankly, I think the cannibalism magic is pretty freaking awesome, though it is more than a little disturbing. And no, that doesn't make you a bad person, just willing to discuss slightly morbid things.

[mtlhddoc2]

yes, Hemalurgy, sorry for the confusion.

[Ari54]

That makes more sense than Feruchemy, hah! Sorry about that

Anyways, I've finished drafting costs for Eno now so I thought I'd share that, too. Eno has the traditional fantasy "see magic through fantastic glows and auras" magic detection system, unlike Ida. Also unlike Ida, Eno has a balanced effect on the world- every action needs an equal and opposite reaction. Instead the cost is personal, and unlike most personal costs, Eno doesn't make you tired, it makes you sick.

There's also some thematics to the personal cost: Enomancers can alter physical constants, like making things more flammable, weakening the nuclear force so things fall apart more easily, setting up anti-gravity fields, etc... To make an antigravity field, you have to make another equally sized field with double-gravity. Each of these abilities brings on different sicknesses: working with flammability gives you a fever, messing with gravity upsets your sense of balance, working with nuclear forces makes you tired, playing with momentum makes you queasy if you move, and so on.

So the depth of someone's power is their state of health, not an abstract magical strength. An Enomancer needs to be in top condition to perform large quantities of magic, and can quite easily kill himself if he don't know his limits.

[Batchman]

You know, Ari, that sounds pretty interesting! It will be cool to see where that goes!

Like many of the others around here, I am also a writer, but unlike Brandon and all the others around here, I am nowhere near being ready to write any massive, involved fantasy books. Unfortunately, at this point almost all of my writing is in the form of short fiction. And writing short fiction, I don't really end up with in-depth magic systems.

If there is any magic, it is a minor side-point, and not something that you learn anything about how the magic works.

Instead, my short stories are usually a fantasy treatment of a non-fantasy setting. For example, I was working in a cellular provider call center for a few weeks, and really hated a lot of the stupid things they had us do, as a part of the job. I wrote up a humorous story about somebody working in a wizard's supply company off of the situation.

It's a short story, only three or four pages, and I enjoyed writing it quite a bit.

Would be glad to post it here, if anybody else would like to see it.

[Andrew the Great]

Sounds fun! I'd like to take a look at it, at least. You could always email it to me if you're thinking about ever trying to get it published. My emails in my profile.

And as for some of us around here writing big involved fantasy novels, we never said they were any good...

[Patriotic Kaz]

I can build a world give you all the information in atlas form... write summaries of the history for the last 100 years and then write a detailed outline. I however have very little "authorship" ability and can't write all that well. It appears that my creativity, like most of my other talents, is half of the whole.

[Batchman]

I know how that goes.

I can write some nice scenes and dialog, I can word things well, but when it comes to actual plotting, not so much.

Instead, I get so far into a story, and then no longer know how to get to a conclusion.

I manage to avoid that problem with the short stories, though.

I'll post my story in it's own thread, and wait to see if it gets any comments, or possibly gets deleted for not being appropriate for the forum.

Just reread it tonight, and still found it funny, though perhaps a little bit rough.

[Patriotic Kaz]

I can develop a plot and narrate but that's it, my dialog ect. sucks.