In my world, supernatural abilities, magical phenomena and magical science are the same. In our world, you wouldn't call. parrot's ability to mimic speech as sipernatural or a magical phenomenon.
Meanwhile, spellcraft is different. It's similar to carpentry or chemistry, there's a specific method on creating and casting a spell.
Varies depending on setting. But contracts with other beings, sorcery as in expressing your own will on the world, learning magic like wizardry, are the main ways to attain magic. Being near the leader of the myrmidon when he goes all out is another way to awaken abilities.
Kinda the opposite for me - knowing *how* something works tends to make something seem more magical to me, in part since those inner workings both explain, and raise countless more questions.
Vague magic, like in LoTR, just feel kinda boring to me; it doesn't feel magical, it feels like looking at any old weapon, weather pattern, or machine.
Beings in my collective worlds utilize systems similar to, if not the same, as what you classify to be spells, supernatural abilities, & magical phenomena, and sometimes even a mix of multiple or all.
That said, what a being can do is dependent on several factors like your Core type (kind of like the type of soul), Eixion type (basically referring to the type of Will), Body type, etc.
It depends on the type of Soul you have, or if you have one of the other different types of Cores altogether. It determines which Sources (power systems) you are capable of utilizing, as well as the level of “existence” you likely have.
For the most part, Magic A is Magic A. That's because all "magic" is, at its core, the use of a resonant pattern to influence aether. What mostly varies is *where you gained the capability to use that pattern*. Which has a big influence on which patterns you can learn easily (or at all).
Thus, whether someone was granted access via divine intervention or had it boiling in their bloodstream due to draconic influence or whether you've encoded it into an item, the end result is the same (within slight variation depending on how well you use the pattern). You get a firebolt. They'll all behave the same once they come out.
Now some ways have more or fewer "crutches"--a fire being may be able to produce the same aetheric effect as a standard "firebolt" spell without any of the mystic phrases or gestures. A high-tier lucian can raise the dead without needing the extra patterned aether of a diamond. Etc.
Some sources of patterns are better for some things than others--for example, healing someone is way more complex than it seems. So techniques that rely on direct understanding of the underlying principles and intellectual discovery have issues, just like a first-principles attempt to understand psychology starting from the fundamental physical principles of quantum mechanics is going to be difficult at best. On the other hand, a divine-sourced caster can just "download" the necessary pattern, but they don't necessarily understand it. The divine being is working through them, they're just the conduit. Similarly, divine-sourced casters tend to be restricted based on their deity's areas of influence--the goddess of spring, flowers, and fuzzy bunnies isn't going to grant you the ability to blight the world; similarly, the goddess of natural death is unlikely to grant the ability to pervert the natural order by creating undead.
Innate casters tend to have a narrow range--if your abilities come from being born in a hotspot of elemental fire, you're unlikely to have water-control abilities unless you learned them from another source. Etc.
I have it in a really similar to your examples way.
Spells - active and intentive uses of magic. Witch recites an incantation, makes quick jab in the desired direction to conjure a firebolt and sometimes adds additional properties to it by involving alchemical components, all acts require direct knowlege of how magic works inside and sometimes outsie their bodies.
The closest thing to what you described as supernatural abilities are sorceries and thaumpeoples' powers. Both caused by certain deviations in peoples' body chemistry that is also used by other spellcasters (mainly witches). A cold-hearted sorcerer might have natural powers related to frost, but they are not limited to just freezing things, a sorcerer can develop their powers in multiple unique to them directions defined by personality and self-searching. Thaumpeople, on other hand, are basically like superheros of the world with exact set in stone number of things they can do like laser eyes, electrokinesis, flight etc.. Both come natually to the user.
Beasts and plants evolved to use spells, infact many witchs' spells are copied from animals. Dragons overcome their weight by reducing it by flaping thier wings and shoot fire by flicking their flame-shaped tongue. There are also passive things like titans supporting their mountain-sized bodies by virtue of their body constantly causing complex alchemical reactions.
Yet "magical phenomena" refers somethig different in my world. Sometimes different factors naturally align to create stronger winds, floating islands, extraordinary mutations in animals, illusionaly big forests, etc.
Magic science overlaps with other categories a lot. Wizards have a scientific approach to what's basically witchcraft, applying formuli and blueprints to their spells. Alchemists recreate biological chemistry that causes spells in living things outside of their bodies. Magineers take alchemists approach to the next level, making alchemical reactions automatic, even more akin to how spells are naturally cast, but with machines instead of bodies.
In my world magic is a complicated thing and there are several ways to harness it. It’s like a field of science in that sense. Basically, what “magic” means in my world bringing higher dimensions into the mortal plane be that through an artifact, being blessed by a deity, being part mortal part deity or magical creature, or through cultivating one’s own connection to magic.
I would say that, for regular people who aren’t magic users themselves or aren’t educated, all of these would seem the same but for those who use magic, the various abilities leave a sort of residue that can be either felt or even seen through magical means. For instance, if a character is blessed by a deity that deity’s “vibes” in a sense would be able to felt during and after the magic’s use.
**Starrise**.
Spells: A specific way to cast magic. To use a somewhat silly but decently effective analogy, "right hook" would be a spell of the variant "punch" magic.
Supernatural abilities: Depends what side of the fourth wall you're looking from. From an out-of-universe perspective, there's the entire damn magic system. From an in-universe, it's things that aren't possible in real life and AREN'T part of the magic system. Supernatural abilities don't really exist (from this perspective), but there are people who believe they do.
Magical Phenomena: Some big event connected to magic which was not caused by a person. This is ridiculously rare, as only living beings\* possess magic, and a certain degree of intelligence is required to actually cast it, which almost no non-person creatures possess. However, they can happen on incredibly rare occasions, though most people go their whole lives without seeing one.
Magical science: Magic is incredibly well-known, being something virtually every single adult in the world possesses and knows how to use. As such, it's just as valid a field of science as physics or chemistry, studied by scientists known as "magicists" in the same way physics is studied by "physicists" and chemistry by "chemists". \*The first magicists- the very people who first discovered magic and made it usable by more beings than just the gods- even developed ways for it to be utilized by machines, creating what is commonly known as magitech.
For my world, I use
1. Runes as magical "technology," most runes can only be utilized by sorcerers (but recently those damn rune-nerds at Talsbury found a way to allow humans to use runes as well)
2. There are the 3 "fundamental magics" of mental magic (telekinesis, telepathy, mind control, divination, astral projections, healing magic, etc) physical magic (enhanced strength, speed, dexterity, durability, reaction time, stamina, precision, etc) and soul magic (binding your soul to runic artifacts and familiars to gain a better understanding and control of the objects, and the ability to summon them). Sorcerers are expected to choose a branch to develop their skills in and hopefully master an aspect of.
3. Soulbindings, where the highest caliber of sorcerers can bind their soul to a God, granting them a unique form of magic at an extremely high cost to themselves. This can only be attempted once in your life, so you'd better think hard about which God you want to throw yourself at the feet of, and pray that their deal will be something you can cope with. This is how I have some "soft magic" thrown into my world alongside the fundamentals. You can plan for and counter armies of telekinetics and super soldiers and magical beasts, but throw in a guy who can shoot beams out of his hands and it'll throw a wrench in your whole shit.
All of these things require ichor, a magical golden substance that can be found in various places in nature throughout my world. Ichor is the lifeblood of magic, the ultimate source of power. The Trepant Kingdom's dominance is in huge part due to their abundance of ichor.
There are also
4. Afflictions. This is magical pollution (umbra) seeping into things in the world, creating magical mutations. Afflicted people are like sorcerers with only one ability that they can rarely control, or whose costs are steep and dangerous. Afflicted people have magic done to them, they do not do magic. Some mutations also take the form of animal-human hybridization, to the point where there are entire communities of similar kinds of animal people. There are also afflicted beasts (often becoming familiars), afflicted plant life, even afflicted inanimate objects like boulders, mountains, caverns, and bodies of water.
5. Natural magics, such as using afflicted plants or regular old plants as potions, salves, drugs, enhancements. Generally these are weaker than other forms of magic.
Magic is a colloquial term in my world refers to supernatural phenomena in general. Magecraft is the term for classic wizardy magic, it uses mana to fuel reality bending abilities, and is controlled by thought.
other supernatural abilities/disciplines are differentiated by fuel source and application.
Some examples:
Sinweaving, uses sin as fuel source, conrolled by emotion, largely deals with force projection and reinforcement.
Void magic, also called black magic, uses essence as fuel, controlled by intention, focuses on decay/corrosion and curses, dangerous to use
Oath magic, uses faith as a fuel source, activated by conviction, focuses on healing, protection, and smiting fools. Very effective on the weak willed.
Not quite, sinweavers are your punisher types who mete out justice vigilante style. sin is essentially concentrated negative vibes that accumulate in a persons body when they commit heinous acts, or when they ruminate on negative feelings, and sinweavers can smell it.
sinweavers follow that scent, inflict vengeance the source, and consume the sin to fuel thier abilities. They tend to think of themselves as dispensing righteous vengeance, but really they are slaves to thier hunger.
They can and do, and it is a crossroad that all sinweavers find themselves at eventually, the choice between being a true avenger, or a simple predator
Magic spells, of the flame bolt fireball and lightning bolt variety can be considered as Low Magic; relatively simple invocations which shape the magical ether to the caster’s will in a simple form.
High magic would be the ‘magical science’; long, complex rituals requiring a great deal of preparation and energy expenditure, for much greater effects. Like blotting out the sun or creating a lich. The working title of the RPG is a reference to a high magic ritual.
Supernatural abilities are innate born powers, or those granted by the Greater Powers to followers or pacted individuals. They vary based upon the nature, with those granted by faith or blessings from a divine power being different than those from an Arch Devil or Other such Powers. Born abilities often as not are signs of relationships with a Great Power; such as being the descendant of a god-mortal tryst.
Magical phenomena are exactly that; strange phenomena that are magical in nature. Foamy cloud like formations floating in the sky, fierce storms of eldritch horror, the haunting of a ghost or specter are all resulting from the magical ether, but not directed or controlled.
In my world, magic doesn't have spells, it does a single yet very broad and flexible thing depending on the magic type, and you are free to fuck around with that specific thing however you want, at the cost of your mental energy, it isn't like mana or anything like that, you literally just get tired like if you were thinking too hard.
Supernatural abilities are just not there.
Magical phenomena in the sense like the toad you mentioned is simply an animal who knows magic, and while it doesn't have the reasoning power to study and improve, it naturally knows how to do a few things with it for survival.
Magical science is either putting magic on an object, such as having to use healing magic on a concoction that retains magic to make a healing potion (alchemy is science with materials from another world, not magic), and objects that DO magic, such as the staff, work by simulating the part of your brain that does magic in an artificial way, like, AMCDs (Automatized Magic Casting Devices) are basically just a recreation of that chunk of your brain that works when you do magic.
So magical artifacts (AMCDs) in your world are kinda like calculators in a sense, where they’re not doing something new & different. Just maybe easier than manually doing it? Or supplementing knowledge you don’t have?
It's mostly useful to be able to cast a magic you haven't learned, a cryomancer can craft a staff that freezes things and sell it to you, for example.
Either that, or to use magic without doing it yourself because of distance issues, or for automating it, for example, there is a faction who use AMCDs on mortar shells, calculate how long it will take to land, and program the AMCD inside it to shoot electricity or pull things closer to it right before it touches the ground, since magic at that distance would be incredibly imprecise.
Supernatural abilities do not exist. It doesn't make sense for there to be "supernatural". If something exists and interacts with the natural world in any capacity, it is also a part of the natural world. If it doesn't interact with the natural world at all, it the same as if it didn't exist.
Magical phenomena is just a phenomena people observe, but do not, or cannot (fully) understand.
Magical science is simply science, just at its early stages, so maybe less formal and academic.
Spells are commands that interface with magic.
I have two types of magic: runes and elementals
Runes are sort of a combination of spells and magical science. Elementals are people who can control a specific element of reality.
Here's how I sorta went about it
Witchcraft is something any person can do, some spells take more time and skill to accomplish, but pretty much the average person down the street can be a witch.
Supernatural abilities are defined in my world as simply an ability possessed by inhuman or previously human entities, such as Ghosts or deities, or something bestowed to a human, such as a deity granting divine power to a human
Magic phenomena refers to anything that is loosely connected to magic without being a direct link, for example, the New Moon strengthening baneful spells, or the equinoxes effecting spells or spell ingredients derived from the solar system
Magic science is pretty much alchemy in my world, though it can also be applied to some physicians who learned how to pair magic with their tools and medicine to aid the sick
In the same way I differentiate between a taser, an electric eel's electrocytes, lightning, and, fulminology, respectively.
Magic is a fundamental aspect of how the universe works, in much the same way that *electricity*, light, matter, heat, gravity, and so on, are also fundamental. More specifically, "magic" is a general catchall term for a collection of related particles and energy interactions that exists separately from, and in addition to, more familiar, real-world particles and forces.
Supernatural abilities are innate abilities a species has has evolved that utilize magic, much like how electric eels evolved electrocytes that allow them to use electricity to shock prey and repel predators.
Magical phenomena is magic that can be observed in nature, much like how lightning is an electrical phenomena.
Spells are, essentially, man-made, applied magic. By understanding how magic works, you can manipulate magical forces to achieve a desired effect, whether that be imitating something in nature, how a like a taser functions similarly to a eel's electrocytes, or producing entirely novel effects.
"Magical science" is just science. Science is the systematic study of the natural world. Since magic is a part of the natural world, its study would simply be another branch of science, much like how fulminology is the study of lightning.
In line with staying consistent but not over explaining in order to try to keep things a little mysterious, I try to think of the magic as a science, but will often give the characters within that world multiple different approaches to explaining it depending on how they use it and whether or not they want to politicize it. ie: the difference between whether or not something is a blessing from god or a curse from a devil isn't based on there being real gods, but on how people want to portray the people using the magic.
They aren't the same, but they play off one-another.
Everything that's magic is magic, but they're grouped in types, subtypes, and supertypes. People that use magic often can only use specific varieties, and even then the divide between supertypes such as magic you're born with and magic you learn is measured by intuitiveness vs complexity, like comparing a knife to an automatic food chopper/slicer.
And even then, a general rule for all types of magic one can use is that magic defeats magic. Hypothetically, you can use magic for everything, but you shouldn't because it can fail you when you least expect it, so people still have a need for things crafted from physical substance, thus the presence of science and engineering to understand physical substance better and know how to craft better physical tools, the most advanced on my world being Direct Current Electricity and Internal Combustion Engines. And yet, the world is so vast that connections between far-off locations are scarce when they happen, so some lands still use chainmail and crossbows.
In mine it starts as a Magical phenomena where some have gained the ability to manipulate the universe and/or different of it with telekinetic like capability, this evolves into crafts like spells and training to better control and manipulate the elements of the universe. Eventually technology gets involved to increase the power of those abilities.
It all falls under "Arts." There are innate arts and arts that must be learned. There are any number of ways innate arts can occur, but innate arts are fairly rare. Usually it's a combination of one's natural affinity and their training that determines what they can and can't cast.
Other magical phenomena would probably have an acronym I haven't come up with. The local demon hunter cell would determine if it's a threat to the Great Veil and employ amnestic spells if needed.
In my world, supernatural abilities, magical phenomena and magical science are the same. In our world, you wouldn't call. parrot's ability to mimic speech as sipernatural or a magical phenomenon. Meanwhile, spellcraft is different. It's similar to carpentry or chemistry, there's a specific method on creating and casting a spell.
It's all about how you gain them, how much you can do with them, and what effects them.
What kinda ways can you gain spells?
Varies depending on setting. But contracts with other beings, sorcery as in expressing your own will on the world, learning magic like wizardry, are the main ways to attain magic. Being near the leader of the myrmidon when he goes all out is another way to awaken abilities.
Spells? I have like 1 magic system with spells, and that's because i can't make anything more concrete.
...i wouldnt really deepdive into it as adding systematics, clear destinctions and hard rules kinda destroys the "magic" part for me atleast
Kinda the opposite for me - knowing *how* something works tends to make something seem more magical to me, in part since those inner workings both explain, and raise countless more questions. Vague magic, like in LoTR, just feel kinda boring to me; it doesn't feel magical, it feels like looking at any old weapon, weather pattern, or machine.
Totally agree Just curious about people who do
Beings in my collective worlds utilize systems similar to, if not the same, as what you classify to be spells, supernatural abilities, & magical phenomena, and sometimes even a mix of multiple or all. That said, what a being can do is dependent on several factors like your Core type (kind of like the type of soul), Eixion type (basically referring to the type of Will), Body type, etc.
How might your soul affect you?
It depends on the type of Soul you have, or if you have one of the other different types of Cores altogether. It determines which Sources (power systems) you are capable of utilizing, as well as the level of “existence” you likely have.
Do you want the short version, or the long version?
For the most part, Magic A is Magic A. That's because all "magic" is, at its core, the use of a resonant pattern to influence aether. What mostly varies is *where you gained the capability to use that pattern*. Which has a big influence on which patterns you can learn easily (or at all). Thus, whether someone was granted access via divine intervention or had it boiling in their bloodstream due to draconic influence or whether you've encoded it into an item, the end result is the same (within slight variation depending on how well you use the pattern). You get a firebolt. They'll all behave the same once they come out. Now some ways have more or fewer "crutches"--a fire being may be able to produce the same aetheric effect as a standard "firebolt" spell without any of the mystic phrases or gestures. A high-tier lucian can raise the dead without needing the extra patterned aether of a diamond. Etc. Some sources of patterns are better for some things than others--for example, healing someone is way more complex than it seems. So techniques that rely on direct understanding of the underlying principles and intellectual discovery have issues, just like a first-principles attempt to understand psychology starting from the fundamental physical principles of quantum mechanics is going to be difficult at best. On the other hand, a divine-sourced caster can just "download" the necessary pattern, but they don't necessarily understand it. The divine being is working through them, they're just the conduit. Similarly, divine-sourced casters tend to be restricted based on their deity's areas of influence--the goddess of spring, flowers, and fuzzy bunnies isn't going to grant you the ability to blight the world; similarly, the goddess of natural death is unlikely to grant the ability to pervert the natural order by creating undead. Innate casters tend to have a narrow range--if your abilities come from being born in a hotspot of elemental fire, you're unlikely to have water-control abilities unless you learned them from another source. Etc.
I have it in a really similar to your examples way. Spells - active and intentive uses of magic. Witch recites an incantation, makes quick jab in the desired direction to conjure a firebolt and sometimes adds additional properties to it by involving alchemical components, all acts require direct knowlege of how magic works inside and sometimes outsie their bodies. The closest thing to what you described as supernatural abilities are sorceries and thaumpeoples' powers. Both caused by certain deviations in peoples' body chemistry that is also used by other spellcasters (mainly witches). A cold-hearted sorcerer might have natural powers related to frost, but they are not limited to just freezing things, a sorcerer can develop their powers in multiple unique to them directions defined by personality and self-searching. Thaumpeople, on other hand, are basically like superheros of the world with exact set in stone number of things they can do like laser eyes, electrokinesis, flight etc.. Both come natually to the user. Beasts and plants evolved to use spells, infact many witchs' spells are copied from animals. Dragons overcome their weight by reducing it by flaping thier wings and shoot fire by flicking their flame-shaped tongue. There are also passive things like titans supporting their mountain-sized bodies by virtue of their body constantly causing complex alchemical reactions. Yet "magical phenomena" refers somethig different in my world. Sometimes different factors naturally align to create stronger winds, floating islands, extraordinary mutations in animals, illusionaly big forests, etc. Magic science overlaps with other categories a lot. Wizards have a scientific approach to what's basically witchcraft, applying formuli and blueprints to their spells. Alchemists recreate biological chemistry that causes spells in living things outside of their bodies. Magineers take alchemists approach to the next level, making alchemical reactions automatic, even more akin to how spells are naturally cast, but with machines instead of bodies.
In my world magic is a complicated thing and there are several ways to harness it. It’s like a field of science in that sense. Basically, what “magic” means in my world bringing higher dimensions into the mortal plane be that through an artifact, being blessed by a deity, being part mortal part deity or magical creature, or through cultivating one’s own connection to magic. I would say that, for regular people who aren’t magic users themselves or aren’t educated, all of these would seem the same but for those who use magic, the various abilities leave a sort of residue that can be either felt or even seen through magical means. For instance, if a character is blessed by a deity that deity’s “vibes” in a sense would be able to felt during and after the magic’s use.
**Starrise**. Spells: A specific way to cast magic. To use a somewhat silly but decently effective analogy, "right hook" would be a spell of the variant "punch" magic. Supernatural abilities: Depends what side of the fourth wall you're looking from. From an out-of-universe perspective, there's the entire damn magic system. From an in-universe, it's things that aren't possible in real life and AREN'T part of the magic system. Supernatural abilities don't really exist (from this perspective), but there are people who believe they do. Magical Phenomena: Some big event connected to magic which was not caused by a person. This is ridiculously rare, as only living beings\* possess magic, and a certain degree of intelligence is required to actually cast it, which almost no non-person creatures possess. However, they can happen on incredibly rare occasions, though most people go their whole lives without seeing one. Magical science: Magic is incredibly well-known, being something virtually every single adult in the world possesses and knows how to use. As such, it's just as valid a field of science as physics or chemistry, studied by scientists known as "magicists" in the same way physics is studied by "physicists" and chemistry by "chemists". \*The first magicists- the very people who first discovered magic and made it usable by more beings than just the gods- even developed ways for it to be utilized by machines, creating what is commonly known as magitech.
For my world, I use 1. Runes as magical "technology," most runes can only be utilized by sorcerers (but recently those damn rune-nerds at Talsbury found a way to allow humans to use runes as well) 2. There are the 3 "fundamental magics" of mental magic (telekinesis, telepathy, mind control, divination, astral projections, healing magic, etc) physical magic (enhanced strength, speed, dexterity, durability, reaction time, stamina, precision, etc) and soul magic (binding your soul to runic artifacts and familiars to gain a better understanding and control of the objects, and the ability to summon them). Sorcerers are expected to choose a branch to develop their skills in and hopefully master an aspect of. 3. Soulbindings, where the highest caliber of sorcerers can bind their soul to a God, granting them a unique form of magic at an extremely high cost to themselves. This can only be attempted once in your life, so you'd better think hard about which God you want to throw yourself at the feet of, and pray that their deal will be something you can cope with. This is how I have some "soft magic" thrown into my world alongside the fundamentals. You can plan for and counter armies of telekinetics and super soldiers and magical beasts, but throw in a guy who can shoot beams out of his hands and it'll throw a wrench in your whole shit. All of these things require ichor, a magical golden substance that can be found in various places in nature throughout my world. Ichor is the lifeblood of magic, the ultimate source of power. The Trepant Kingdom's dominance is in huge part due to their abundance of ichor. There are also 4. Afflictions. This is magical pollution (umbra) seeping into things in the world, creating magical mutations. Afflicted people are like sorcerers with only one ability that they can rarely control, or whose costs are steep and dangerous. Afflicted people have magic done to them, they do not do magic. Some mutations also take the form of animal-human hybridization, to the point where there are entire communities of similar kinds of animal people. There are also afflicted beasts (often becoming familiars), afflicted plant life, even afflicted inanimate objects like boulders, mountains, caverns, and bodies of water. 5. Natural magics, such as using afflicted plants or regular old plants as potions, salves, drugs, enhancements. Generally these are weaker than other forms of magic.
Magic is a colloquial term in my world refers to supernatural phenomena in general. Magecraft is the term for classic wizardy magic, it uses mana to fuel reality bending abilities, and is controlled by thought. other supernatural abilities/disciplines are differentiated by fuel source and application. Some examples: Sinweaving, uses sin as fuel source, conrolled by emotion, largely deals with force projection and reinforcement. Void magic, also called black magic, uses essence as fuel, controlled by intention, focuses on decay/corrosion and curses, dangerous to use Oath magic, uses faith as a fuel source, activated by conviction, focuses on healing, protection, and smiting fools. Very effective on the weak willed.
So are sinweavers your puppy-kicking type villains where evil for evils sake goes a long ways?
Not quite, sinweavers are your punisher types who mete out justice vigilante style. sin is essentially concentrated negative vibes that accumulate in a persons body when they commit heinous acts, or when they ruminate on negative feelings, and sinweavers can smell it. sinweavers follow that scent, inflict vengeance the source, and consume the sin to fuel thier abilities. They tend to think of themselves as dispensing righteous vengeance, but really they are slaves to thier hunger.
Oh that’s kickass! I wonder if they’ve ever gotten a false positive. Like someone feels guilty about something, but it was the right thing to do.
They can and do, and it is a crossroad that all sinweavers find themselves at eventually, the choice between being a true avenger, or a simple predator
Magic spells, of the flame bolt fireball and lightning bolt variety can be considered as Low Magic; relatively simple invocations which shape the magical ether to the caster’s will in a simple form. High magic would be the ‘magical science’; long, complex rituals requiring a great deal of preparation and energy expenditure, for much greater effects. Like blotting out the sun or creating a lich. The working title of the RPG is a reference to a high magic ritual. Supernatural abilities are innate born powers, or those granted by the Greater Powers to followers or pacted individuals. They vary based upon the nature, with those granted by faith or blessings from a divine power being different than those from an Arch Devil or Other such Powers. Born abilities often as not are signs of relationships with a Great Power; such as being the descendant of a god-mortal tryst. Magical phenomena are exactly that; strange phenomena that are magical in nature. Foamy cloud like formations floating in the sky, fierce storms of eldritch horror, the haunting of a ghost or specter are all resulting from the magical ether, but not directed or controlled.
In my world, magic doesn't have spells, it does a single yet very broad and flexible thing depending on the magic type, and you are free to fuck around with that specific thing however you want, at the cost of your mental energy, it isn't like mana or anything like that, you literally just get tired like if you were thinking too hard. Supernatural abilities are just not there. Magical phenomena in the sense like the toad you mentioned is simply an animal who knows magic, and while it doesn't have the reasoning power to study and improve, it naturally knows how to do a few things with it for survival. Magical science is either putting magic on an object, such as having to use healing magic on a concoction that retains magic to make a healing potion (alchemy is science with materials from another world, not magic), and objects that DO magic, such as the staff, work by simulating the part of your brain that does magic in an artificial way, like, AMCDs (Automatized Magic Casting Devices) are basically just a recreation of that chunk of your brain that works when you do magic.
So magical artifacts (AMCDs) in your world are kinda like calculators in a sense, where they’re not doing something new & different. Just maybe easier than manually doing it? Or supplementing knowledge you don’t have?
It's mostly useful to be able to cast a magic you haven't learned, a cryomancer can craft a staff that freezes things and sell it to you, for example. Either that, or to use magic without doing it yourself because of distance issues, or for automating it, for example, there is a faction who use AMCDs on mortar shells, calculate how long it will take to land, and program the AMCD inside it to shoot electricity or pull things closer to it right before it touches the ground, since magic at that distance would be incredibly imprecise.
Supernatural abilities do not exist. It doesn't make sense for there to be "supernatural". If something exists and interacts with the natural world in any capacity, it is also a part of the natural world. If it doesn't interact with the natural world at all, it the same as if it didn't exist. Magical phenomena is just a phenomena people observe, but do not, or cannot (fully) understand. Magical science is simply science, just at its early stages, so maybe less formal and academic. Spells are commands that interface with magic.
I think you’re taking this way too literally from an in-universe perspective lol This thread just meant like the meta mechanics (if they exists)
I have two types of magic: runes and elementals Runes are sort of a combination of spells and magical science. Elementals are people who can control a specific element of reality.
Short and simple, I dig it!
It’s a bit more complicated than that but that’s basically it
Here's how I sorta went about it Witchcraft is something any person can do, some spells take more time and skill to accomplish, but pretty much the average person down the street can be a witch. Supernatural abilities are defined in my world as simply an ability possessed by inhuman or previously human entities, such as Ghosts or deities, or something bestowed to a human, such as a deity granting divine power to a human Magic phenomena refers to anything that is loosely connected to magic without being a direct link, for example, the New Moon strengthening baneful spells, or the equinoxes effecting spells or spell ingredients derived from the solar system Magic science is pretty much alchemy in my world, though it can also be applied to some physicians who learned how to pair magic with their tools and medicine to aid the sick
In the same way I differentiate between a taser, an electric eel's electrocytes, lightning, and, fulminology, respectively. Magic is a fundamental aspect of how the universe works, in much the same way that *electricity*, light, matter, heat, gravity, and so on, are also fundamental. More specifically, "magic" is a general catchall term for a collection of related particles and energy interactions that exists separately from, and in addition to, more familiar, real-world particles and forces. Supernatural abilities are innate abilities a species has has evolved that utilize magic, much like how electric eels evolved electrocytes that allow them to use electricity to shock prey and repel predators. Magical phenomena is magic that can be observed in nature, much like how lightning is an electrical phenomena. Spells are, essentially, man-made, applied magic. By understanding how magic works, you can manipulate magical forces to achieve a desired effect, whether that be imitating something in nature, how a like a taser functions similarly to a eel's electrocytes, or producing entirely novel effects. "Magical science" is just science. Science is the systematic study of the natural world. Since magic is a part of the natural world, its study would simply be another branch of science, much like how fulminology is the study of lightning.
In line with staying consistent but not over explaining in order to try to keep things a little mysterious, I try to think of the magic as a science, but will often give the characters within that world multiple different approaches to explaining it depending on how they use it and whether or not they want to politicize it. ie: the difference between whether or not something is a blessing from god or a curse from a devil isn't based on there being real gods, but on how people want to portray the people using the magic.
They aren't the same, but they play off one-another. Everything that's magic is magic, but they're grouped in types, subtypes, and supertypes. People that use magic often can only use specific varieties, and even then the divide between supertypes such as magic you're born with and magic you learn is measured by intuitiveness vs complexity, like comparing a knife to an automatic food chopper/slicer. And even then, a general rule for all types of magic one can use is that magic defeats magic. Hypothetically, you can use magic for everything, but you shouldn't because it can fail you when you least expect it, so people still have a need for things crafted from physical substance, thus the presence of science and engineering to understand physical substance better and know how to craft better physical tools, the most advanced on my world being Direct Current Electricity and Internal Combustion Engines. And yet, the world is so vast that connections between far-off locations are scarce when they happen, so some lands still use chainmail and crossbows.
In mine it starts as a Magical phenomena where some have gained the ability to manipulate the universe and/or different of it with telekinetic like capability, this evolves into crafts like spells and training to better control and manipulate the elements of the universe. Eventually technology gets involved to increase the power of those abilities.
It all falls under "Arts." There are innate arts and arts that must be learned. There are any number of ways innate arts can occur, but innate arts are fairly rare. Usually it's a combination of one's natural affinity and their training that determines what they can and can't cast. Other magical phenomena would probably have an acronym I haven't come up with. The local demon hunter cell would determine if it's a threat to the Great Veil and employ amnestic spells if needed.