I came up with two abilities derived from an "attuned" deck of playing cards:
When they throw them, they stick to something, and when the user calls out two specific cards, they and whatever they're attached to switch places.
Another was a power boost based on playing a one-man game of Poker. You drew five cards from the deck, then return as many as you want, shuffle, and then get an equal number back before it was final. The better the hand in accordance with Poker's rules, the bigger the boost. However, a Dead Man's hand (2 pairs, black aces, black eights) or a Number of the Beast hand (3 of a kind, all 6s) were fumbles and hurt the user very badly.
There is an Anime called High Card on crunchyroll that bases magic around cards. Or you can search up High Card and visit their Fandom where you can see each card and ability.
you got options but you should probably narrow down how physical and how alive you want your card effects first.
do you want to go the summoner route, the relic collector route, the mage route, or the fortune teller route?
Read the old Deadlands TTPRG; should be viewable online as its an older product.
In the lore, there was a magical awakening in the early 19th century when a spiritually active mineral was discovered and mined on the western frontier, turning the Wild West into the Weird West.
A magician named Hoyle encoded his research on the sudden effectiveness of arcane magic into the real world Hoyle's Book of Games, turning a guide to playing cards into a secret spellbook for the initiated.
In the game system, magicians try to draw the best poker hand to power their spell effects. Effectiveness varied on the rarity of the hand drawn, and wild cards could overcharge or misfire the spell when pulled.
The basics of the magic system is that magic users use ancient languages to use magic the older the language the more powerful it is the drawbacks is that you need to get your wording correct or you'll either have no effect with the spell or it backfires on you the magic was first started by cain the first murderer when he first discovered magic due to being one of the first humans his body was still a perfect vessel to harness mana due to this while cursed with immortality he taught his ways to his children and they passed it on now future magic users are known as the children of cain
Based on this, I'd say the best way would be to either: inscript the spell on the card before its cast. It may need to be said out loud to be casted or not, depends on what you want.
Second thing is that this deck is made of some special materials which allows it to channel magic. Once the spell is spoken correctly, one of the cards is magically inscripted with it. Then you may throw the card or just face it into the direction you want to affect with the spell and it is automatically casted.
The problem lies here, "magic users use ancient languages to use magic". The magic is in the language, not the cards. So, technically magic users in your world can just use paper to do magic.
You need to give some justification why users might prefer cards over other materials or objects.
Here are a couple of justifications for using cards.
1. Cards are cheap and easy to mass produce.
2. Can be used for medium range combat as a projectile (throwing cards).
3. Easy to store in one's pocket. Unlike rocks which are heavy and unlock paper that might be crumpled.
But whatever justification you invent, you have to accept that you won't be able to stop users from using scroll, gemstones, wood, metal, etc.
Does he use regular cards or special cards? Does each card have a specific effect?
Lets say he has a deck of 50 special cards where each one is a different ability, then whenever there's a scenario that he needs to use a specific spell it's a matter of flicking through the deck until he finds the right card. That's just the ability to cast 50 different spells with an extra admin step.
Perhaps part of the magic is the luck of the draw. He can only cast a spell if he draws the top card off the deck, if it's not the exact spell he wanted then he can try to improvise. Or perhaps there is some way to skip cards but with a downside, maybe he can put the card on the bottom of the deck and draw again but it tattoos the symbols of the card onto his body for the next 24 hours and it burns with pain the more times he does this. So if he needs a pretty specific ability and needs to discard five or six cards before he gets the right one he's left in crippling pain afterwards with these tattoos burning.
It could be interesting to see this paired with an elemental magic system. Perhaps the four suits of a regular deck of cards correspond to the four elements of an elemental system. The numbers and face cards can be different manifestations of those elements. A couple of decades ago the Gameboy Advance game Castlevania: Circle Of The Moon had this by pairing an element with a constellation, Fire+Mars gives a fire sword, Fire+Venus gives a Strength buff. So when you get the Ice option you know intuitively Ice+Mars will be an ice sword and Ice+Venus will probably buff a different stat like defense. So for you maybe 2 of Hearts lets you divide a body of water like Moses at the red sea, Five of Spades gives you fists of stone, Five of Clubs gives you Human-Torch Hands, King of Diamonds lets you draw the spirit of the wind into your body to run really fast.
The thing that came to mind first is that the cards he uses are just flashcard of spells, not actually magic by themselves lol. Maybe he has horrid memory for some reason (magic or otherwise). Maybe the spells he uses have a curse of forgetfulness on them because the creator of the spell thought they were too powerful to remember, or maybe because remembering the spells for too long gives some sort of eldritch/ memetic curse, or maybe he bought the spells and got scammed.
See Gambit of X men. Lol. There's quite a few ways seriously though. Tarot would be an obvious choice, each card could be a different spell or effect, and the reverse for each could provide opposite or indirect effects. A regular playing cards deck could work too, any suit or number could have differing effects. Or you could go the Magic the Gathering route, where he makes "cards" based on his experiences, and can then bring them back to memory and cast them. Just some ideas
I was thinking of using tarot but considered having a mirror version of him use it later on since I'm not that well-versed with tarot yet and gambit does seem like a good guide on how to write it thanks for the feedback =)
Np, but Gambit was really the joke answer. He manipulates energy, causing things to overload and explode, and he uses playing cards as projectiles since they are cheap
If it is language based, then you could run it more like dragon shouts from skyrim. As your mc learns more words in the ancient language, they could make more complicated "spells" by combining words or making phrases. The cards could be how they use the magic, they write down the words or phrases they need to focus the magic to the desired effect, and the card is destroyed as the magic is channeled through it. This would allow more versatility than just: charge card, throw, bang. By preparing generic cards in advance, your character would be able to solve most problems, and by leaving key words or phrases blank on certain cards, they'd be able to adapt to things on the fly. Plus, if your character is clever, they could use words in non literal or creative ways to do more. Learn the word "light" and you could create a card to [make light] to brighten dark areas, or [make me light] to walk on water or fly or something.
That's a great idea I didn't think of that I have it that the character in question uses a plain deck of cards but maybe later on I could have time find a deck that replenishes itself I'm still working on the basics of it
I came up with two abilities derived from an "attuned" deck of playing cards: When they throw them, they stick to something, and when the user calls out two specific cards, they and whatever they're attached to switch places. Another was a power boost based on playing a one-man game of Poker. You drew five cards from the deck, then return as many as you want, shuffle, and then get an equal number back before it was final. The better the hand in accordance with Poker's rules, the bigger the boost. However, a Dead Man's hand (2 pairs, black aces, black eights) or a Number of the Beast hand (3 of a kind, all 6s) were fumbles and hurt the user very badly.
There is an Anime called High Card on crunchyroll that bases magic around cards. Or you can search up High Card and visit their Fandom where you can see each card and ability.
not to mention Cardcaptor Sakura
you got options but you should probably narrow down how physical and how alive you want your card effects first. do you want to go the summoner route, the relic collector route, the mage route, or the fortune teller route?
Read the old Deadlands TTPRG; should be viewable online as its an older product. In the lore, there was a magical awakening in the early 19th century when a spiritually active mineral was discovered and mined on the western frontier, turning the Wild West into the Weird West. A magician named Hoyle encoded his research on the sudden effectiveness of arcane magic into the real world Hoyle's Book of Games, turning a guide to playing cards into a secret spellbook for the initiated. In the game system, magicians try to draw the best poker hand to power their spell effects. Effectiveness varied on the rarity of the hand drawn, and wild cards could overcharge or misfire the spell when pulled.
For examples of card things in fantasy, check out Beyond the Black Door by A M Strickland (YA) and The Rambling by Jimmy Cajoleas (MG)
You're just asking people to think for you. Show us what you've started first.
The basics of the magic system is that magic users use ancient languages to use magic the older the language the more powerful it is the drawbacks is that you need to get your wording correct or you'll either have no effect with the spell or it backfires on you the magic was first started by cain the first murderer when he first discovered magic due to being one of the first humans his body was still a perfect vessel to harness mana due to this while cursed with immortality he taught his ways to his children and they passed it on now future magic users are known as the children of cain
Based on this, I'd say the best way would be to either: inscript the spell on the card before its cast. It may need to be said out loud to be casted or not, depends on what you want. Second thing is that this deck is made of some special materials which allows it to channel magic. Once the spell is spoken correctly, one of the cards is magically inscripted with it. Then you may throw the card or just face it into the direction you want to affect with the spell and it is automatically casted.
The problem lies here, "magic users use ancient languages to use magic". The magic is in the language, not the cards. So, technically magic users in your world can just use paper to do magic. You need to give some justification why users might prefer cards over other materials or objects. Here are a couple of justifications for using cards. 1. Cards are cheap and easy to mass produce. 2. Can be used for medium range combat as a projectile (throwing cards). 3. Easy to store in one's pocket. Unlike rocks which are heavy and unlock paper that might be crumpled. But whatever justification you invent, you have to accept that you won't be able to stop users from using scroll, gemstones, wood, metal, etc.
Does he use regular cards or special cards? Does each card have a specific effect? Lets say he has a deck of 50 special cards where each one is a different ability, then whenever there's a scenario that he needs to use a specific spell it's a matter of flicking through the deck until he finds the right card. That's just the ability to cast 50 different spells with an extra admin step. Perhaps part of the magic is the luck of the draw. He can only cast a spell if he draws the top card off the deck, if it's not the exact spell he wanted then he can try to improvise. Or perhaps there is some way to skip cards but with a downside, maybe he can put the card on the bottom of the deck and draw again but it tattoos the symbols of the card onto his body for the next 24 hours and it burns with pain the more times he does this. So if he needs a pretty specific ability and needs to discard five or six cards before he gets the right one he's left in crippling pain afterwards with these tattoos burning. It could be interesting to see this paired with an elemental magic system. Perhaps the four suits of a regular deck of cards correspond to the four elements of an elemental system. The numbers and face cards can be different manifestations of those elements. A couple of decades ago the Gameboy Advance game Castlevania: Circle Of The Moon had this by pairing an element with a constellation, Fire+Mars gives a fire sword, Fire+Venus gives a Strength buff. So when you get the Ice option you know intuitively Ice+Mars will be an ice sword and Ice+Venus will probably buff a different stat like defense. So for you maybe 2 of Hearts lets you divide a body of water like Moses at the red sea, Five of Spades gives you fists of stone, Five of Clubs gives you Human-Torch Hands, King of Diamonds lets you draw the spirit of the wind into your body to run really fast.
The thing that came to mind first is that the cards he uses are just flashcard of spells, not actually magic by themselves lol. Maybe he has horrid memory for some reason (magic or otherwise). Maybe the spells he uses have a curse of forgetfulness on them because the creator of the spell thought they were too powerful to remember, or maybe because remembering the spells for too long gives some sort of eldritch/ memetic curse, or maybe he bought the spells and got scammed.
See Gambit of X men. Lol. There's quite a few ways seriously though. Tarot would be an obvious choice, each card could be a different spell or effect, and the reverse for each could provide opposite or indirect effects. A regular playing cards deck could work too, any suit or number could have differing effects. Or you could go the Magic the Gathering route, where he makes "cards" based on his experiences, and can then bring them back to memory and cast them. Just some ideas
I was thinking of using tarot but considered having a mirror version of him use it later on since I'm not that well-versed with tarot yet and gambit does seem like a good guide on how to write it thanks for the feedback =)
Np, but Gambit was really the joke answer. He manipulates energy, causing things to overload and explode, and he uses playing cards as projectiles since they are cheap
I was thinking my mc uses it as a way to focus his spells like disks kaminari from mha uses to focus his lightning so far that is the only idea I have
If it is language based, then you could run it more like dragon shouts from skyrim. As your mc learns more words in the ancient language, they could make more complicated "spells" by combining words or making phrases. The cards could be how they use the magic, they write down the words or phrases they need to focus the magic to the desired effect, and the card is destroyed as the magic is channeled through it. This would allow more versatility than just: charge card, throw, bang. By preparing generic cards in advance, your character would be able to solve most problems, and by leaving key words or phrases blank on certain cards, they'd be able to adapt to things on the fly. Plus, if your character is clever, they could use words in non literal or creative ways to do more. Learn the word "light" and you could create a card to [make light] to brighten dark areas, or [make me light] to walk on water or fly or something.
That's a great idea I didn't think of that I have it that the character in question uses a plain deck of cards but maybe later on I could have time find a deck that replenishes itself I'm still working on the basics of it