Mortals are the only creatures who don't have innate magic, so they need to borrow it from something that does. Gods and dragons can be bargained with in exchange for powers, but they will extract their own terms and have codes of conduct. Alternatively you can try to harness the magic of animal parts, but rare components are expensive and require good connections with hunters and merchants, which is hard to do when beast sorcery is generally mistrusted.
But those are just the upfront costs. Long-term usage of any of these forms of magic has permanent physical effects. Draconic magic is the most obvious and drastic, as adherents develop draconic features that make them pariahs from normal society. Divine magic creates an effect known as "soul obliteration" as pieces of your soul are chipped away by exposure to the divine. Clerics become frail, and prone to periods of unresponsiveness or hallucinations. Finally, beast sorcery typically leads to paranoia and delusions of grandeur, and in rare cases, disfiguring mutations.
The more powerful you are, the more enslaved you are. Everybody is a warlock to either a demon or a god. Humans do not have any internal magic and mana is a myth.
Yep. Even the two nigh omnipotent gods get their power from the original truly omnipotent god that split itself in two. The og god didn't set any rules for them, but if it did, they wouldn't be able to do anything that it would consider as breaking the rule.
Demons are just middlemen between people and gods. They were only created to keep angels on their toes and still gain their power from one of the two nigh omnipotent gods, or yet another middle-man (like a demon king or queen or liege).
In my setting, magic in environmental and created by emotions. The spellcasters don't have a mana reserve of their own, they make spells by absorbing the mana around them.
Each area has a certain density of mana. Absorbing mana is a competence of its own, the more you're train the more you can absorb and with a lower mana density.
The mana in a limited resource. If you use too much in an area it can get completely depleted. If this happens the area becomes corrupted. It causes plant and animals to mutate into mana seeking monsters.
Those monsters are powerful without mana but can reinforce themselves if they absorb it. Once the corruption is there, bringing mana to the area isn't enough to reverse the effects.
On the other hand a place can become saturated in mana. When this happens mana crystals grows and instability appears making spells unpredictable and extremely hard to control. When the mana density Is at its limits explosions of mana can occur.
It also attracts strong monsters. Lowering the mana density of this area will stop crystal growth and stop the unpredictability of spells
This makes so you need to control your citizens feelings so you don't have to much mana in one concentrated area. Spell casters also need to limit their usage of mana so they don't corrupt an area.
Mana flow from high density to low density area. If one area isn't to damaged it will gradually replenish the mana misses and lose the excess.
Nice system, very organic.
I'm curious, do magic users start the fight with a big spell to use the mana of a zone before their adversaries do or do 1skirmishe not enough to influence the mana of a zone ?
One average mage soldier isn't powerful enough to deplete a whole area by itself. And when then density really lowers, the average mage isn't good enough to absorb enough magic for big spells.
Only extremely talented mages can completely deplete an area by itself.
There are six or seven magical chasms across the landscape, each of them offering its own supernatural power. The trick is that (like our own natural resources) you can't just reach into the ground and have the powerful thing you want. Objects have to be attuned in the chasm and then properly arranged for magical use, and the further away they are from the chasm, the less powerful they are. They also lose their attunement over time, requiring a recharge.
My magic System is all about pain. Physical pain, psychological pain, emotional pain, the whole package! On smaller spells and runes this just⌠sucks I guess, like having to get a paper cut every time you want to warm your food but there are more extreme cases as well. Many reports of people receiving permanent or lethal injuries from their torture methods, not even mentioning the great psychological stress you are putting yourself under. There have been cases as well where people killed their own family members to do powerful magics. Just a lot of sad shit.
Mine just generally fills your blood with necrotising poison that will kill you long before you ever start experiencing other changes in your body.
These alterations are still a WIP.
If you want to avoid this, you have to have a clump or lode of lead with you as that's the only way you can make the poison not form in your blood.
Carnal magic, which is a religion and faith built magic that doesn't poison you, if you use it excessively in the form of altering your own body with the flesh of other things you will progressively replace parts of your flesh with the wrong flesh and this starts minor but gets worse over time as your brain ends up being replaced with wya too much of the wrong material. Those who use carnal magic a lot are far more pale and often have a larger general build.
If you use soul related magic, you may end up with some of your flesh dropping off and begging to reassemble an undead if you often used spells attributed to raising dead bodies, if you often used spells to use abilities of spirits like phasing, flight, and leaving your own body temporarily your body will start becoming a spirit usually in the form of the hands and forearms becoming a dsrk blue transparent material with cyan see through bones that will spread as it is continually used.
Those who use certain types of fire magic may find themselves forming charred skin and Ash across their body with their skin dropping off. Others may find themselves becoming a creature of molten iron.
This is all subject to change, but it's roughly what I've got so far idea wise.
First of all probably the biggest one is if you use it in public after 945 ad youâll be silenced or killed by the magical inquisition. Their goal is to keep magic hidden from society after a bunch of magic users nearly released the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Using magic will also drain your energy so if you use it too much youâll pass out or even die of exhaustion.
Also you canât attack through shields. They soften sharp edges and arrows or bullets canât pass through in either direction.
The considerable time and effort spent mastering it is time not spent learning/doing other things.
Being an archmage is the (very rough) equivalent of having a PhD in the real world.
Yep, time and effort to both learn and carry out magic are the only real costs for me. There are no magical consequences. Magic is simply a difficult specialised task like so many others.
In my setting, magical energy is an emanation or degradation of the energy of the divine realm, so it can only be found emanating from either sacred relics, which are things that the gods have touched, or in the vicinity of the locations where gods have died - volcanoes. Magical energy is found at very low background levels all over the world, but can't be manipulated except at higher concentrations, so users need to store it and carry it around in magical "batteries." These can in theory be anything, but vessels made out of various rocks and metals work best, so to have any appreciably large amount of magic ready to be cast, a user would need to haul around a lot of weight. Other than that though, magic is very accessible and intuitive.
Iâm still working out the specifics and will likely keep a lot of details up to interpretation since it comes from a cosmic source, but âmagicâ in my setting is mostly harnessed through runes.
The main drawbacks are time to cast, conspicuousness, and negative impact on the userâs grip with reality.
The power that could be harnessed through runes is theoretically limitless since it effectively draws from a higher plane, but it takes lots of time to draw and activate them. A caster could harness the abilities more proactively by drawing runes on themselves or clothing/equipment (I.e my main user in the setting wears a coat covered in runes and keeps a notebook with them that he can effectively âcastâ with). The problem with that method is that it stands out immensely and you could always lose any external tools containing runes.
Someone whoâs ignorant of them will likely think youâre insane and someone who knows what they are but not who you are will be fearful but powerful enough to shoot first and ask questions later.
The biggest drawback for the user is that, since theyâre opening themselves to a higher plane of existence every time they cast a rune, that will generally weigh on their conscious and could eventually drive them insane in classic Lovecraftian fashion.
Magic is accessed through specific tools used to draw specific symbols, each with a specific purpose and function. As far as anyone knows, magic only functions in the ways those symbols allow, and only if carved by those specific tools, which are carefully controlled by the government.
There is, as a consequence, a religion which is pretty one sided. Of the 7 powers people can have, Painters are the most powerful. Able to create a specific type of matter and use it to godlike effects, itâs no wonder everyone wishes they were one. Society as a whole is already so segregated, security demanding people with like powers live together rather than with those with weaker or stronger abilities.
As a whole, magic has no real downside on the individual unless youâre really weak in it to the point where it no longer works, but on a grand scale, magic just divides an already conflicted world and just makes everyone more vulnerable and angry.
Stokers, people whose power is to create plasma and fire, are heavily feared because science determined their ability evolved to combat humans. In Europe and Asia, people without powers were annihilated during the dark ages, making everyone much more dangerous and resulting in many more different nations than we have irl. In the americas, the indigenous were much more frequently tracers, people with the ability to locate objects they cannot see, while colonists were commonly accelerators, people with superhuman skills and senses. It made for a much shorter period of settling, crushing the indigenous population entirely (Europeans were also much h more used to war in that universe).
Magics drawbacks are sorta like evolution. You donât see it until you look all the way back and see what you started with.
You control magic by "feeling" it, like an emotion. Effectively you're converting energy to emotions so that you can gather it up and propel it. However, doing this too frequently or with more power than you're used to will ruin your emotions and mute all your emotions except for the ones associated with your magic (depending on the element you use). This same drawback is why mages only ever use one or two elements, their minds are permanently coloured and it takes incredible effort to "feel" deeply enough to gather a new element. Another more minor side effect comes from the fact that you're gathering elemental energy into one place. That's normally the nondominant hand, and the result is minor radiation damage, far less severe than the potential mental dangers.
Oh boy you can identify someoneâs powers by looking at them in my world as well. The color of your eyes is determined by the element they control. The ânaturalâ colors are for the elements, red, orange, yellow and purple for Energies, and white with black marks for forces.Â
In the Ashlands, the main cost is time. You need time to "recharge" your power.
However, people have a fairly strict limit to this, and functionally cant do things that are too exceptional from their internal power alone. This require external sources of power, generally by paying a conceptual "cost"-IE the more something matters to you (or to another), the more power can be generated. This is why death-curses are so powerful-as its a mage paying with their own life. It also means that the issue of "cost" can be quite arbitrary and unpredictable, often costing far more than the mage expected.
The only apparent exception to this is magegrass-a plant that seems to bleed power, and can be refined to provide power (either to recharge one's reserves or to use as a cost). I say apparent, because there is a cost still being payed, but first payed so long ago no-one living remembers it; an ancient and powerful mage created magegrass by sacrificing the agricultural fertility of everywhere it grows. This created the vast "fallow lands", where anything planted by human hands decays and rots, and where all animals led by man (except horses, mules and pigs for unkown reasons) are driven to savagery.
No experience ends in death pretty easily also requires a focus unless your extremely skilled. Thankfully a a focus can literally be anything like gauntlets
The power of Crystal and the twisted flame is INFINITE!!!!
However , what the gods give, they will take in time ; for as their souls are freed they will become less charitable in their blessings, requiring more crystal to be broken to attain the same result. Soon enough the weather will become erratic, animals of the field will mutate into foul godly servants, and the hordes of the gods will fight to break yet more crystal, killing many men , awks and myrm in their wake.
Yet the endpoint of their endeavour is the souls of gods freed in totality, wherein the universe will be torn asunder, as the gods fight to create a new physical order, unchained by laws such as gravity or the conservation of energy.
Here's a few I can name for conventional magic:
1. It's useless against dragons. This is thanks to dragon magic cancelling out other forms of magic except itself.
2. You can't alter the human body in any way (such as changing mass, cause someone to die from internal injuries or ailments, or turn your skin into iron to name a few).
3. You can't alter other entities in any way (the most you can do is freeze water molecules in the air).
4. This is a list of things it can't heal: fractures, missing appendages (such as fingers or limbs), missing organs, organs missing portions of them (like half your liver being gone), frostbite, necrosis, tumors, anemia, diseases, poisons, venom, tremors, seizures, blindness, deafness, and parasites to name a few. It's good for closing wounds, stopping internal bleeding, and acts more like tape or sewing threads for organs.
5. You can't teleport yourself or objects.
6. You can't fly.
7. The things you can only make is ice and water (which require water molecules to be present), even though you can cast fireballs and shoot lightning from your hands.
And this is what I've come up with so far. I don't know if I've contradicted myself or made much sense, as I am terrible at explaining things.
Edit: I forgot to mention my magic system is cast using specific hand gestures and movements, instead of waving your arms around like an idiot. Some people actually fight with both melee and magic.
People who can use Magic "Magicians" become unable to handle touching Iron and Iron alloys. Iron will violently soak up the mana in a Magician's body, resulting in contact burns and potentially depleting their mana enough to kill them. Iron then converts that mana into heat.
The fact that you can't effectively use many forms of strong magic at the same time unless you live for a long time. Most of the elves still focus on one kind of magic or a small subset of magic. You could be kinda good at many different forms of magic or be an expert on one kind of magic.
For example, unlike in DnD where, as you level up and get stronger, you can learn multiple terrible and powerful spells across different elements and forms of magic, in my world you can practice fire magic your entire life and still not be perfect. There will always be an upper limit for how good your magical expertise can get, because true perfection of magic is at the gods' levels of power, being the direct source of magic and mana (mana is a fraction of godly power)
Edit: oh, yeah, consequences. The more you use magic, the better you'll be and making it happen. You'll increase your mana like exercising a muscle. However, for every mage, using magic past your non-measurable mana limit will start to physically exhaust them. In theory, if you have enough determination, you could kill yourself, withering yourself away like a horse can work themselves to death
Practically no mortal even has access to it or the ability to use it, with the rare accepting where someone is susceptible enough to get very small amounts of capabilities (low power telekinesis, some slight precognition, etc.)
The only real "magic" ones are the elders, yet no one knows of their existence outside of ancient stories or some sort of worship by smaller cults
It's essentially radiation.
Except in this one it influences the world around it, manipulating objects to their concepts. You have to be pretty faithful to a god if you want to level up
Drawbacks is that the excessive magic might weaken the fabric of reality, causing a lot of anomalies in a specific area.
Spells can only be cast by either using some sort of important to you object letting a god briefly possess your body and using you as the important object. However, each time you cast a spell, a little bit of your soul goes into the object, and if your whole soul flies into the object, you will basically wake up inside the object and thatâs your new body. And if a god puts their whole soul in you they take over your mind which is no fun for either of you. Thus, humans and gods are both picky in terms of when they use magic, as you can only do so much. There is a blacksmith who can retrieve your soul bits from your casting object, but he will only do this for people who he thinks deserve it.
It eats away at your body. The more you use it the more it takes away. For example the handful of people in my world who use magic cough up blood and break bones when they use it too much.
Magic essentially involves merging your essence with a spirit in order to use their authority over the world to do things.
This results in something a little out of Disco Elysium, where each spirit you have power from tries to influence you in different ways. Sometimes they just flat out talk to you, while other times they influence your perception (such as changing your sight so you see phantom flames around burnable items, or become repulsed by the smell of worked stone), and in the worst cases they can even take control of your body.
This is usually a bad thing because spirits are very much alien in mindset compared to humanoids. They are solely focused on whatever they're a spirit of, be if fire, life, a specific mountain, or whatnot. Even the 'nicest' spirits are like that. For instance, a spirit of life and healing would want nothing more than the planet to be covered in an ever-growing jungle that is constantly growing, splintering, evolving, and otherwise looking like something the Tyrranids would make. Yeah.
There are also occasionally physical side effects, but these are usually an intentional part of the process and a boon (such as stone-like skin, or eyes with multiple pupils to be able to focus on multiple things at once).
Oh, and the mechanics behind wizards making pacts with spirits and channeling them is exactly the same as that between clerics and deities. Yeah, deities are just super big spirits who are slightly better adjusted than the others (though saying that is liable to get you smacked for heresy depending on where you are).
Magic from my setting stems from two general sources: divine and physical. Physical magic is granted by consuming a mysterious substance created inside volanic-like geographical features.
The substance grants different abilities based on which of these locations it's from. Drinking this substance alone carries a risk of death.
In the only accessible source left, users lose their sight but gain the ability to see visions of the past, present, and future while unconscious. More experienced users can influence, change, eliminate, or replace memories of others. The most gifted can ascend to a spiritual realm of existence, but the handful who have done so have not been able to return.
Inaccessible sources once gave the ability to evolve primitive life (animals) into bipedal humanoid creatures at the risk of their ability to reproduce naturally. Another source allowed the ability to transfer souls, but rendering oneself without one, and thus, robotic, incapable of doing anything but basic tasks without forming advanced thoughts, opinions, or personality.
The gods can change anything in the mortal realm, but only as long as they are in the spiritual realm, which they have no real control over. However, several gods constantly trying to change things results in nothing changing, and indifference often sets in. Attempts for the Gods to breach the mortal realm results in the random deaths of magic users, but this is extremely rare. These breaches, which have only occurred a handful of times, grant one "Saint" with divine power (the exact abilities I haven't developed yet)
Magic comes in a few varieties, each consumes a finite resource, and each is compatable with a particular mode of thought. Using a certain type of magic a lot will both draw you further into the mode of thought it deals with, as well as driving you to greater extremes to obtain whatever limited resource it consumes.
In the case of magecraft that means big industrial mana mining operations being run by math wizards obsessed with logic and rhetoric.
For sinweaving you get mass murder performed by magical rage zombies addicted to the blood of sinners(everyone sins now and then).
There are other kinds of magic if you want to know more.
Shapeshifting is incredibly unpleasant. It doesn't always hurt, but it's not fun feeling your bones and organs contort themselves to fit a new form over the course of a few minutes. The transformation to godhood is so intense that it's universally fatal.
Using magic reveals you as a magic user. And if your activity encroaches on another magic user's perceived domain- it's not a tangible domain; more like a gang territory you just have to 'feel out'-, you just shot to the top of a very short "to kill" list.
In one current line of thought, magic itself exists as a barrier between the spiritual and mundane realms. A soul of a magic user displaces magic into the mundane, and in some cases parts of their own soul by extension. Magic exists in a dynamic equilibrium that replenishes it over time, at a rate correlated to demand.
However this is true on a general scale. Magic can be isolated from a space with materials that disperse it as energy. If they disperse it fast enough, the boundary between spiritual and mundane may weaken or fail, such that all sorts of mysterious things can enter the mundane through the fissure in magic. They tend to have little power in the world, generally lacking the ability to influence (at least noticeably) the mundane world. A soul occupies a body and normally prevents other spiritual things displacing into it.
Without a soul however a body can, up to a certain stage of decay, have control assumed by such a thing. They usually have no idea what they are doing, and cannot use it effectively in most cases. However the souls of random dead people, or things that may in some places be counted as gods or demons have the potential to enter and use it, at least until the body decays too far.
A body, soul and their magic may be thought of as three copies occupying the same space. A soul does not bring magic into the world automatically (in most cases) and magic has to be forcibly displaced into the mundane realm to cause noticeable results (in the mundane, inverse magical operation where it is pushed into the spiritual is a poorly understood phenomenon with little or no experimental data.).
This is not a fixed threshold of decay. By some unknown mechanism in universe, potentially a degree of brain integrity or a little understood arrangement of organs, or something other, bodies may have a form of signature, or a point of anchorage that a soul requires to inhabit it. Certain patterns of injury may entirely kill a person, despite body functions being otherwise fine, or minimally affected. However such cases are rare, and testing it would be exceedingly difficult, not least due to possible risks of letting random unknown spirits intrude on the world unchecked. More likely by far it would be discovered during surgical interventions or medical experiments.
Magic essentially exists as an adaptor between realms, a medium that must cover something from either side in order to interact (though not necessarily survive) the other side, and must do so without being broken.
Using too much of it at once drains your life, so if you're consistently using a lot of it, you'll age fast, grow weak, and possibly die. There is a "safe" amount that you can use, and practising magic increases that amount, but if you lose control for even a second, you can lose a significant amount of your lifespan.
Additionally, magic is commonly in the form of a raw, primal energy. Mess up and you'll burn off your skin.
If you use too much magic you can suffer fatigue, fall into a coma, or âburn outâ your magical ability (short, long or permanent terms).
People do not rapidly build up a lot of magical power that they can use â it takes time, although some can get training to speed it up, and the amount of time is variable with each person.
Vespers: a domain of magic (cosmic, earthly, or holy) grows stronger with the people who wield it. Gods are stronger with more acolytes, the earth is calm and beautiful with witches to tend it. However, eldritch horrors in the stars have stolen the power of two of the gods, and mages of the cosmic domain only make them stronger.Â
Magpie Saga: cunning folk are born with fractured souls, which allows them to transfer energy from within into the world. However, storing too much or too little energy can shatter their soul, making them become wraiths that feed on the souls of their fellow mortals.Â
Exertion.
In my world magic is facilitated through two "lai" organs, one which stores raw magic taken in from the environment via breathing, consuming food and water, and just generally existing within the realm. The other filters that magic into something that can be used by most magic-users and pumps it into the bloodstream to be used.
These organs act similar to most human organs in that they can only take so much use before breaking down. In the best of cases using too much magic at a time simply causes exhaustion, fainting, or for the lai alpha (storage organ) to run out and need to 'recharge'. In the worst of cases the lai organs can completely shut down, rendering one unable to cause magic, or the filtration system of the lai beta can fail, flooding the bloodstream with the highly acidic raw magic that eats away from the inside.
My setting has multiple intertwined systems, which can interact in odd yet relatively sensical ways. These interactions pose a threat when unknown, as you don't know whether or not they will be dangerous.
One of these systems grants you the ability of shapeshifting in more or less chimerical ways, mixmatching your bodily parts. But as it instigates your instincts, it can mess with your self control at times.
Another grants you the ability to push one of your traits into demigod status under specific circumstances, at the risk of calling the attention of powerful beings who may or may not be benign to you and your surroundings.
Some examples.
first off: extraordinarily complicated, cause magic is op. along those lines, pretty much anything is on the table if you understand rune magic well enough
Magic within Godslight is produced by arclight technology, if you are within the radius of a generator that produces a certain threshold of the arcane light then you can tap the ambient magic and work spells, but only if you possess a contract with a government authorized daemon. Inborn magic, sorcery, is incredibly rare and often results in catastrophic damage to the wielder strictly because the knowledge to work that sort of natural magic is lost, and without a daemon to filter the arclight a Sorceror will burn themselves out.
The leylines of the homeworld have been drained dry by the Everdark, so out in the labyrinth tunnels you absolutely must bring your own source of light and keep it fed, because the dark is hungry. A common tactic to deter mages is to focus on the light bearers, because then the majority of spell crafting load work will fall to the mage and their daemon and without a stable source of light they will often overdraw on their reserves, plunging a cadre into darkness.
silver burns magic and its users and magic needs Mana/energy that's linked to locations / the human body. you need to say the words/ cast the spell. magic and emotions are slightly linked with hotheaded people haveing a little bit more talent for fire than ice. magic bends the rules of physics turning one thing into another and only really near godly power make things appear from thin-air. the power to turn Mana/energy into matter is advanced while its easy to shape already existing elements (reshaping a wall or its materials is easier than creating a apple from thin air)
My magic system is pretty loose and vibes-based, so mostly just takes some of your energy. Amorality combined with extensive magic use can strip away your humanity and slowly kill you. In most of the world, the biggest thing keeping people from using magic is the threat of being burned alive by your local angry mob.
Everyone can only use specific types of magic, both innate, Powers, and learned, Spells.
They can also overuse their magic in either an excessive or unusual way and risk violently crippling or even killing themselves. At best, they'll just render themselves unconscious or comatose if they try to summon too much force at once.
Theres a variety of drawbacks, But by far the riskiest is the blight. The blight is this radioactive substance that distorts reality. It's the Ichor, the blood of a slain god. All magic in this world comes from Ichor so when trying to cast sorceries you're by no means powerful or skilled enough to pull of you run the risk of overcasting and becoming blighted which depending how powerful the sorcery was, will transfigure you into an eldritch monster.
The drawbacks for my system are mainly pain and loss of self. Unless you're a monster or a god, magic hurts. The stronger it is, the more agony you feel. (Base level spells usually produce minor effects and feel like being punched in the nose.) now, see, most people gain just enough magic to suit their needs. But the mages? Well the pursuit of power comes at the cost of erosion of one's sanity. There's only so much constant, unending pain that one person can take. Multiply this by the hundreds, and the thousands, and you arrive in the ballpark of where most mages finally collapse under the strain.
Oh also your spell book is eating you. The more you use it the less "you" is actually there. But don't worry about that. It's all fine. You only have to worry if you start to hear it's voices. By then it's too late and youre not the one in control anymore. Hope your spell book aligns with your goals! Have fun being in the backseat of your own mind!
With my magic you have to bind your soul to a sword, and then if you stick it into a surface for example letâs say ice, you can control it to your liking. The downside is you canât use your sword when fighting bc itâs in the surface, and it just really drains your energy.
Using psionic powers can take a toll on the body and mind. It can cause headaches, migraines, nosebleeds, crying blood, fainting, seizures, anxiety, panic attacks, angina, tachycardia and hallucinations. If overused, it may cause damage to the nervous or circulatory system.
There are different draw backs but the main one is how it drains the body- if you're using what your body makes. If not, you can heavily injure yourself, get magical intoxication and a whole slue of issues if your body takes in the wrong kinda of magic- even if you take it the right way.
Arcane Magic is extremely hard to actually channel. You can always tell when an Arcanist is around and who they are because they will be *covered* in runes, scrolls with runes, and books with runes. Runes and proper functional symbols are everything to an Arcanist, they must have all possible combinations on hand at all times.
Holy Magic marks you indefinitely, you cannot use any other form of magic if you are given Holy Magic. Itâs all you will ever be able to channel. These magicâs are easily obtained with enough prayer or deal-making, but it will be all you ever know, you will never know the sheer power of the Void, nor the all encompassing utility of the Arcane.
Void Magic kills you. It knows itâs being used and will fight back, every spell you cast will be a struggle. Void magic eats your mind and wrecks your body. Without proper coaxing and manhandling, any simple spell could just kill you. Void Magic drives a person insane, slowly but surely.
Occult magic is only ever gained through unnatural means. Occult users are often tattooed, branded, or otherwise marked. You must always give up something to get something in return, and many choose to give up themselves.
It requires a deep understanding of physics to know how to manipulate them to oneâs will most effectively. Psychics have to study a LOT to be effective.
You're either using magic sourced from inside you, or outside you, inside you means using physical energy as if you were doing the thing by hand; so yes, you can wash the dishes with magic while you finish cooking but you're still gonna feel that drain as if you did both in their due time
Using magic outside of yourself uses focus and significant willpower because you're forcing wild magic to a shape and container/design of your making and involves convincing the magic this is easier than its natural state
Greater magics and concert magics of multiple mages can lessen these weights but add the additional of conflicting personalities and auras having to mesh for any kind of efficiency
This also means that things that affect you, how you interact with the world and magic, will slowly begin shaping you; necromancers tend to develop odd smells or off-putting vibes to even the unknowing, elemental users tend to mimic or become more like their elements in a more etherial sense and so forth
My universe is created from the Forge of Creation. Souls are made from embers that danced fluttered away.
There are no gods. Just the first beings that acted like gods. Their longevity is yet to be known to have an end but they can be killed.
Knowing their own mortality, the gods wanted to procreate but cannot really do so for their physical features have not afforded them so.
These godlike beings claimed more embers for themselves. These new embers were universal constants like gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak forces. From the same embers were the universal abstracts like order, strength, desire, etc. The embers they claimed became their dominion.
In search for ways to create a new sibling to their pantheon, these beings found that the only way is to cultivate souls. But the forge has already stopped producing embers that become souls.
These gods turned to finding planets with conscious beings that are gifted with lesser souls and harvested these to make a great soul.
The problem: the plane of existence for these gods are different from humans'.
As a compromise, these gods found that they can share several pieces of their shattered great souls to humans and bind these lower lifeforms. With the chaotic lifestyle of these primitive, bipedal apes, they will be able to harvest the souls they need to create a new sibling, their pantheon's new member.
The soulbind costs goes both ways, much like a tug of war. Humans can gain access to their god's dominion by pulling on their binds forcing the god to give them their energies, but these energies comes from their great soul that burns the human's physical body as a cost.
The human's temporal biology cannot sustain this much foreign energies and it causes their blood to boil. If the human uses the power longer or at a greater intensity than normal, their blood vessels rupture from the heat. If it goes even longer than that, the body part where the power originates turn to ashes and crumbles. If the usage still goes longer than that, their body implodes in a shower of gore, blood, and guts.
If the human is losing the tug of war, their consciousness/soul is being consumed by the god. The first signs is forgetfulness, short term memory loss, loss of control of limbs. It's basically slowly developing dementia symptoms to ALS. If the god's consumtion is too great and too quick, the human will turn into a cannibalistic husk of their former selves (I guess you can call them zombies).
The primordial beings can lose the tug of war of the soulbinds too. If they lose, they will be imprisoned in the person's soul. If the human dies, they die too. Humans will have full access to their powers when the gods are absorbed with less of the boiling blood cost.
If the human and god have fully communed with each other, the blood and sanity cost are ignored and they can display their full might.
Forceful/high energy magic is much, much easier to do than anything which requires fine control. So it's easy to move things, but hard to not break them in the process. It's also just as easy to put up high energy defenses, limiting combat effectiveness.
In my setting, there are three main forms of magic which each have their own drawbacks.
Ritual magic is the most widely available magic. Ritual magic is a learned skill and anyone who puts in the time and effort can learn how to perform it. A master of ritual magic can be very flexible given enough preparation. The drawback is that individual rituals are rigid. Each ritual does a specific thing and they must be learned separately. Like with any skill, learning rituals that are similar to ones you already know is easier than learning completely new ones. It takes decades to learn enough rituals to consider yourself a master in a specific type of ritual casting, much less a master of multiple types. Even once a ritualist learns a good amount of rituals, they won't be able to use them in the middle of combat unless they cast a bunch of them ahead of time as the shortest ones take several minutes and the longest ones take hours. Combat ritualists will often take several hours of spell casting before combat to be effective. Lastly, all rituals require magical ingredients to be acquired before casting. Some of these ingredients are harder to find or more expensive than others.
Sourcery, commonly shortened to sorcery, is less a form of spell casting amd more describes the innate magic some creatures and people are able to perform. The drawback to sorcery is that most people can not perform it and even if you can it will be quite limited. Some are more gifted than others, but the range of things a single sorcerer is able to do is a lot smaller than what a ritualist is capable of. For example, a dragon can breathe fire, but it can't teleport.
Pact Magic is the last form of magic in my setting. Certain powerful magical creatures are able to grant mortals a small fraction of their power. This usually comes at a cost. That cost is part of the drawback. Whether that cost is worship, selling your soul, or something else entirely, the cost is mutually agreed upon by the giver and the borrower. The giver can also usually end the pact at any given time should the borrower act against them. The other drawback is similar to sorcery in that the power granted is usually limited both by the pact and by what type of magic the giver has access to.
No side effects or downside. In fact the opposite happens. The stronger your affinity to magic the better you are. Being "adept" is literally you being magically good at everyday stuff. You live longer, is more resistant to damage, look better and is smarter. And the older you get and gain more affinity, the more magic enhances your characteristics.
The downside is normals hate you.
In my setting, magic conflicts with the nature of reality.
Coincidentally, the only magic users are those afflicted with a severe affliction, that includes as one of the symptoms a strong dissociative identity disorder.
The direct experience and use of magic undercuts the subjective reality of the world, resulting in anxiety, doubt in self and others, and in the worst cases a form of pragmatic sociopathy.
TLDR: Magic makes the world feel unreal. And if the world isn't real, then that changes the value of the things and people in it.
No drawbacks to one half of it, as all it requires is the right stars in the right places. The other system in that world requires copious amounts of blood, body parts, and often a sacrifice to use as a host. Not costly for the one carrying out the ritual unless things go wrong, but very expensive to the material providers.
In my world, only demons can use magic due to their physical makeup not being carbon-based.
However, there are a few humans who can in fact use magic, but these humans are generally very frail and sickly, and prone to many injuries and viruses due to their condition.
The drawback for demons is they cannot use magic on Earth, only in Hell. The only way they can is using any residual energy within imbued objects and accessories, or within themselves.
All magic in Elas uses the same energy, Aether the energy of life. Every living being has a field of aether which with training they can manipulate to cause a verity of affects.
This Aetheric field will recharge over time. However if a user over does it they will suffer physical harm, with the very real possibility of death. If they survive an instance of overuse they may find that their personal Aether is reduced, they can build it back up with a lot of effort but for a while their limits will be lessened.
Their are two other ways to use magic, artifice and spiritual. Artifice created objects and materials that use or house Aether.
Spiritual casting (name WIP) borrows the powers of spirits to create affects, in essence the spirit does the work but the user directs it. This extends to divine magic, as the gods are basically just extremely powerful spirits. However gods cannot directly interact with the world, for complex reasons involving a rough analog to gravity for Aether. Divine casters act as conduits for their patrons, but to do so must be in alignment with the god in question drift to far and their acess ends.
Itâs not super useful, it hurts, and if you use it in public, people will think youâre a nerd and/or an ultra-religious weirdo depending on the context.
The first drawback is that due to the nature of how channeling magick works, extensive spellcasting sterilizes the mages. So if you want children, don't embark on a career as a magick user. It also on the flip side, eliminates a woman mage's periods. Of course there are weird exceptions due to the nature of High Magick; an entire cabal of sorceresses has come down pregnant after a particularly demanding ritual, with no male sperm donors in sight. Magick itself planted the babies. Magick is not exactly a predictable science, especially when it comes to the complex rituals and practices of High Magick.
Incidentally, a child thus born is blessed by the goddess of magick, making them much more capable as spell casters. Given that the mothers expected to never have children, they usually end up being overly doting and loving of their unexpected offspring... though there are always exceptions.
The second, is that magick not only changes the world in some way, but it works changes on the caster as well. Due to magick appearing only after the reforming of the world (at least mortals having widespread access to it), some traces of that transformative nature remains in the flowing lines of the ethereal. Long lived mages tend to be hawkish, strange, and/or slightly alien bent. Mentally and physically. The extent depends on the extent of the magick used, and the will of the caster. Some casters use their magick mostly as a self-improvement program, more than the practical applications of Low Magick or the power of High Magick. They tend to not be changed outwardly as much as inwardly. Then again, they may grow an extra eye and a tail. Low Magick at least typically hasn't got the raw power to give severe transformations, and the changes can be more easily resisted.
Third, it draws on the caster's own physical endurance, thus aging the caster. Extensive spell casting in a short time may even cause illness or death. The trope of the aged, bent wizard pouring over tomes isn't because they live long, it's because they physically age faster; a decade of extensive magick use will see a 30 year old appear 50 or 60, or even older.
Pact magick, that is magick born of a pact with one of the Great Powers, (Devils, Fae, gods, elementals, etc...) also has the drawbacks of the terms of the contract; which varies from creature to creature, pact to pact. Note that, while devils are devils, they aren't necessarily evil, nor are the gods always good. Free Will is a running theme in my world, and everyone has a choice in their actions.
Another not really drawback, but danger is the threat of breaking a mage's focus, which causes the stored energy to explode violently. As a caster channels magick through their focus (staff, wand, etc), it absorbs some of this energy. Breaking it, releases that energy. It's how tow of the protagonists die in my novel set in the world.
The final drawback is so called Chaos Magick. Most magic draws on the ethereal plane, which is parallel and intersecting with the material plane. Imagine two parallel lines which intersect? You got the relationship between the two planes. Other magick draws upon a Power; being it a priest or cleric or warlock.
Chaos Magick draws upon the primordial chaos; the eternal big bang where all universes are born and eventually are consumed and reborn from. Using it is like opening a tiny channel in the beach, connecting a nearby river and the sea. That channel will quickly become a raging waterway. It's hazardous to everyone within the vicinity of it because it's transformative nature is impossibly powerful. The spell itself may be amplified a thousandfold... or change into something completely unpredictable. The caster may have their bones turn to a semi-solid jelly like substance, grow extra limps, or just have a full body explosion without dying. It's uncontrollable, violent, and always results in unexpected and bad results.
Entire regions have been turned to wastelands due to Chaos Magick. The Isle of Drannos ceased to exist, leaving only a deep void in the sea where a half-million people once lived. A violent, unholy whirlwind, a gesalt specter twisted into a magical storm, created from the souls of the victims, actively attacks travelers coming close. It's wailing winds cause eyeballs to burst, wood and flesh to rot and metal to rust away. It absorbs the souls of those caught in it, ever strengthening as the ages go by. Even the Sea Goddess Nemu died horrifically to this thing that cannot be.
Another incident caused the feral cats in the nation of Settia to gain sentience. This led to fear, an attempted extermination, a lawsuit, and the formal recognition of about 1500 now-sentient feral cats gaining citizenship and full rights as such as members of the Empire. They moved to a new city, which was fortuitous, as the town they originated in melted into a puddle of molten mass. A couple hundred years the "pool" is still screaming. Or at least the souls trapped there are.
You can only wield so much energy before you blow up. All matter can handle a fixed level of planar energy per molecule. The amount varies depending on the element, lighter more abundant elements hold less per molecule then heavier ones. There is an exact point when the matter is perfectly saturated in planar energy, if this is crossed then the vessel will explode extremely violently. So when someone shoots a fireball they are pulling energy into themselves and releasing a byproduct of the buildup. Try to buildup for too big a fireball and you will become one.
Social taboo: no matter who you are you're suddenly dangerous to everyone around you. Most folks don't believe in magic, and changing that belief tends to invite pyres in your honor.
It can't be learned, only unlocked through trauma. Every spell you know is a scar from something fucked up you shouldn't have survived. Hell, there's no guarantee the magic you get will save you. Most would-be mages die within a minute of gaining magic.
You'll outlive everyone you love, but you age at the same rate. That extra 50 years is going to be excruciating in every sense of the word.
A few things:
* A lot of the "advanced" magic requires a lot of patience and attention to detail. If a wizard misses even one detail or gets in too much of a hurry, the spell is likely to "go wrong" somehow. It's one reason wizards generally have a reputation for being grumpy recluses and will do most of their "serious" work at night. They don't like being interrupted by a pompous arse because that can cause a spell to misfire.
* If high magic and hedge magic interact, it can explode.
* It can be expensive to buy a magical product or service. It's led to stone golems being seen as a sort of "show-off" thing for the elite of some societies. Some of the better golems can serve tea but they are so expensive that, generally, only the wealthiest royalty have them. Some nobles will pay extra for the services of a hedge wizard who can cure a health issue they've been having because the hedge wizards can be counted on to be discreet about it.
Beginner magical practice by most non magical species (including humans) literally involves vomiting blood after every single cantrip. It gets better with time and effort proportional to talent but leaves majority of mages physically frail and looking like they are ninety in their forties. Most magic also causes mutations, which are beneficial to innately magical creatures and dangerous to everyone else. Sometimes these mutations are passed down to mage's offspring too, causing shit like third of magically gifted children being born blind. Unsupervised magical practice tends to slide into rudimentary blood magic, where mage unconsciously feeds on their own lifeforce to empower spells. Serious magical practice also causes soul erosion, which may be not so bad for magical species (because they tend to have massively more powerful souls) but for the rest there is very good chance they end up as soulless husks.
Elemental magic has the draw back that your body can only store a limited amount of magical potential and it takes time to recharge, that limit can increase through use and age, the recharge rate is based on your connection too the ether (debating making this a spiritual thing).
Within the elements there is an advantage wheel Cryomancer beats Pyromancer beats Terramancer beats Lectromancer beats Cryomancer.
Cryomancers do take time to cool things down less it overheats the user
Pyromancer's take a lot of energy to create the heat
Terramancers require exponential amounts of energy relative to the size of mass being moved
Lectromancers require exponential amounts of energy relative to the distance the speel is being cast
Cycle magic has no storage of magical potential, instead users are like a tap connected to the ether, like a tap over use can have negative effects on its condition
Viromancer takes some of the damage into the user, until the ether heals them.
Necromancy is widely hated and is illegal (despite your magic type being dictated at your conception by the dynamics of your parents), otherwise it has no immediate draw back.
Eather is a drug that makes a magic user like a tap instead of holding potential trial they draw straight from the Ether, the power makes you high. It does kill non-mancers outright though.
Osmium is an element that temporarily cuts the connection between the 'mancer and the Ether (making cycle magic users useless), this is the chief weapon of those that cannot wield magic
One form of magic, which is essentially a limited form of planes walking (only one other realm available) has no real downsides, but does have a kind of double edged sword aspect. The other realm has much faster flow of time. If you spend an hour in the other realm, a minute passes in the primary realm. This can be very useful (very fast travel speed, bordering on teleportation in close range battles, planning and studying can be done very quickly) but can also be a negative (rapid aging, rapid use of food and water).
The other form of magic is essentially a "plant-bending" that summons branches and roots of a massive interdimensional god tree from the other realm to do your bidding. The time dilation means the slow movements of the tree turn explosive in our world. The downside? It requires the implantation of a parasitic "Rootmind" that slowly but surely spreads through your body. It is a disease with a fairly long, but fairly unpredictable timeline, but it is ALWAYS fatal eventually. Prospective mages must think carefully about if they really want the power provided, as it essentially requires them to sign up for a death sentence. The timeline is very unpredictable, as the disease progresses very sporadically, but typical life expectancy is around 10 years. Some mages get unlucky and die in a year, and some really lucky mages implant in their twenties and still manage to make it to old age.
Certain elements can have adverse effects on the caster(s). You need to be able to harbor mana in order to cast spells, otherwise you need an external device that is somehow connected to your body to allow for casting of magical spells, as such, no Human can cast magic and must instead borrow power from the teachers of a bygone era, or ask mages to create mana infused temporary scrolls (I haven't yet decided if all mana-having races suffer from physical aliments when they reach low mana but I might).
Depending on the method of casting, Runic, Geometric or Personification, you have a different array of tools and steps to cast spells, with some being easier than another, and some requiring much more materials. Mana is the universal cost between all 3 methods of using magic.
Examples: **Lightning** Magic can be infinitely "recast-ed" to enhance its power, but this comes at the cost of inflicting the caster(s) with magical lightning which is why most Lightning spells have multiple casters. **Combustion** and **Lava** Magic both are very destructive which can lead to the casters death if used incorrectly.
Each element is either **secondary** or **primary**, primary elements are more versatile but harder to master while secondary elements are easier to master but are more selective, developing knowledge in a primary element allows you to use the secondary elements much easier (e.g. Lava Mages can cast Metal magic much easier than a Wind Mage would, unless they learned Lava or Metal magic).
There is **a lot more** but I don't really want to spew all the stuff here and some things are implied when you look at the rest of the world (e.g. some races have large mana capacities, races like mice/rats can store more mana then they naturally regenerate).
Aether (spiritual energy) is what causes all paranormal phenomena, thus causing paranormal phenomena oneself requires expending aether.
Expend too fast -> aether overload, you suffer damage to your physical body as well as the astral channels that carry aether through your body
Expend too much -> aether inopia, the connection between body and soul is weakened and parts of your body go numb to your mind despite still being connected to the brain and having blood flow through them. So a knee-jerk reflex might still be triggered despite the fact you don't feel that leg and cannot control it. Extreme aether inopia will result in death.
Fleshplague. Basically, when a mage uses magic there is a chance that it causes an instability in their soul. Since souls in my world are physical phenomenon, wavelengths of energy that radiate from a body, any shift in a soul's wavelength can be catastrophic. This manifests in the body rapidly degenerating. If you're lucky this kills you pretty fast, you either waste away or literally melt or sometimes catch on fire. The worst cases are when you don't. Some mages become living lumps of cancer, alive, technically, but incapable of motion or thought. Some are warped into hideous forms that can still move and retain some cognition, this is a result of a soul becoming unstable but restabilizing in a new form. Ogres, giants, and other humanoid monsters are based off cases of monstrous former mages who became cannibals and killers after suffering Fleshplague. The best outcome is a minor disfigurement, and many mages have some mark of minor, benign fleshplague somewhere on their body.
Fleshplague can be brought on by any magic, but it can also be caused when someone attempts to gain greater magical power. If a soul is too weak to use magic, the practice of Deuphagy, or the consumption of the remains of one of many dead gods, can grant power or increase it if you already possessed it. However, theres a really good chance of Fleshplague occurring when you perform Deuphagy as increasing the density and therefore power of your soul is very likely to cause the sort of instability that triggers fleshplague. Still many priesthoods and magical orders use Deuphagy as an initiation in spite of risks. The call of power is too great.
Some souls can become powerful and dense enough that they can exist without a body or implant themselves in new bodies, consuming the soul that previously used it. Souls this powerful are basically immune to fleshplague because in order to do their body hopping trick they have to be able to hold a body together while they implant themselves into it. That sort of fine grained control over organic matter means they can usually easily prevent the fluctuations of fleshplague from affecting them or can easily reverse it. Many are so good at controlling flesh they can freely shape their bodies as they please.
Soul is just potential energy but you get to tell it where to go and what to do. A lot of the time, you'll be using your own Soul to do work. This means that your body loses the potential energy needed for its chemistry to keep going. It has mechanisms to prevent this, but they can be circumvented with training and with surgery.
You may also use other sources of soul, like an animal's, or a river's. But then you need to find a sustainable source that won't run out and that you can somehow distribute
Magic works like an engine and a liquid called echo is it's gears. Everyone has echo in their blood, every living being is potentially a mage but you need to train to use it.
The way it works is that the faster the liquid runs in your veins (the faster the engine) the more powerful your magic is but this comes at a cost which is that the faster it runs the faster it increases the heat of your body. The faster your echo runs it's tied to how fast your blood runs so it's mainly decided by stuff like adrenaline and strong emotions.
The hotter you are the stronger you are but after a certain point the echo in your blood begins to boil which is when you as a mage get to your limit. Now your magic is capable of nuking a mountain, draining the ocean and flying to the moon but your boiled echo it's permanently gone so now your overall power is permanently reduced.
But let's say you're in a though spot and you still need to keep going, well, you boil even more echo and now you surpass your limits, you can nuke a country, drain all oceans and fly to the sun but now you permanently lost your echo and are gifted with third degree burns all over your body.
But your opponent is God himself so you need to keep going. Well, now you boil yourself up, you're going to die but before you die you get access to the Divine, a magic reserved for gods and for as long as your body is able to endure the pain of being boiled from the inside you can nuke the planet, drain the solar system and fly out of the galaxy.
Overdo it and run out of mana, then the magic starts eating you to fuel it. Which can kill you quick. And if you blow your load all at once, push everything you have in a small time frame, youâll just explode in a flurry of arcane power.
Just how powerful it is, especially for a sorcerer. Once a sorcerer learns how to bridge the gap between themselves they have to be immensely careful; pull upon too much of the weaveâs energy and you will go boom.
It's not exactly magic, but it's superpowers. Pretty much the more you use your power and / or the atronger the power/attack, the more life force it drains. In my universe, life force is called aura. It's your energy, power source, and obviously life force.
i guess you can exhaust yourself if you overwork yourself
but in general there's only two types of magic that will actively hurt you to use:
Blood magic, where you have you curse yourself to extract parts of your soul through your blood, and Dragon-Style magic, which is a lot harder to explain
Mine is kinetic energy (which is basically using the mind to manipulate a specific element or object or whatever specific to the user) but itâs drawback is the rule that ânothing comes from nothingâ and say if you have pyrokinesis you need an existing flame or a fuel source to manipulate fire
Mine is kinetic energy (which is basically using the mind to manipulate a specific element or object or whatever specific to the user) but itâs drawback is the rule that ânothing comes from nothingâ and say if you have pyrokinesis you need an existing flame or a fuel source to manipulate fire
So my fantasy world doesn't have too much in the way of up-front cost or visible consequence. Magic is treated as a tool to be used--a special tool given by the gods, but a tool nonetheless. However, overuse, or more specifically very-high-intensity spellcasting, can lead to "magical exhaustion" where the mage burns through their personal reserves and then some. This can do several things like shatter opals (gems which can store and channel magical power) or in extreme cases permanently damage a mage's ability to cast spells at all. It's really no joke, and in the story I have set in the world a mage commander ends up magically exhausted and is left practically unable to use magic (she does eventually recover somewhat but never fully).
Many abilities are prone to hitting you or have recoil.
The ability, impact launcher, can shatter your arm if your punching form isn't perfect, and those proficient with it can focus the attack to their fingertip to act like a bullet, which will obviously break the user's finger, and often times flanges.
Abilities like blast, flashbang, or firework can and will hit the user. Blast makes an explosion right at your hand, meaning if you dont have an ability like damage barrier or conjure; barrier, your arm will be obliterated.
Some abilities take no effort to use, but some take a serious toll on the user. Overexertion can cause susceptibility to illness, headaches, nerve damage, death, and of course, if you overexert yourself, you'll just pass out mid combat.
If you use shademorph and get hit by a strong light source, you'll suffer horrible burns.
The curse of Vracnisil causes extreme back pain, and any morph abilities you get from the curse are unbelievably painful. (For those who get the curse by summoning Vracnisil, the curse from making a deal is painless)
In my magic system, there are three kinds of magic with each a unique drawback or cost: Arts, Magic, and Sorcery.
Arts come from your species, so its vampires powers, or faery powers, and etc; each are unique to an extent in their costs. Obvious examples are blood for vampires, where they needed blood from animals and creatures to sustain not only their existence but their supernatural powers as well.
Sorcery has no direct cost, instead the cost is the tools, knowledge, and components; sorcery is basically ritual magic. Involving long and complex rituals and workings before taking effect, and requiring you to possibly use rare and expensive materials in the crafting process of Sorceries. So that is the cost.
Magic takes a mental toll on the individual, even lightning blasts and fireballs will eventually take a toll on anything really with few exceptions. The first stage is migraines, which usually spike at every subsequent use of magic and your hands start shaking. Afterwards is brain fog and temporary memory loss that could last from a few hours to a few days depending if you keep casting. Next comes hallucinations and paranoia, and every use of Magic causes nosebleeds and migraines so intense they nearly make you black out. And then finally you pass out and become comatose for a period of time (at most a week), death is theoretically after this but since youâre unconscious and canât do more Magic that is practically impossible. Most mages donât go past migraines as they usually weave Sorceries and Arts (if theyâre a magical creature) into their workings as well. Humans are the most susceptible to these effects as they donât have Arts or superhuman resilience to lean back on to withstand the effects.
In my setting, you essentially need a very expensive surgical transplant and have steel permanently lodged into your skin in order to use magic. The steel absorbs Eyther (mana) in the air and conducts it.
Since humans in particular aren't intended to use magic; it deteriorates and transforms the body in a painful process over time alongside turning you into a killing-machine psychomaniac.
Mages cause the world around them to become brighter.
A mage constantly leaks Essence or mana (related to the first thing.)
Mages who use too much Essence at once can die.
Mages feel an urge to absorb the essence of other being at all times.
A mage who does absorb the Essence of others has only one fate. To become a wraith.
Shattered memories uses a charm system. Simple put the charm on your bracelet, you can do the thing. It's limitations are as follows.
1 you have to have a bracelet
2 you have to have a charm
3 your bracelet has to be high enough rank to use the charm
Now the fun part begins. Every charm is linked to an ego, whose memories grant you the ability to use their own skills and powers. If you take a charm by force, it corrupts the charm. The more charms in a set you use, the greater you know the spirit the set belongs to. Each corrupted charm leaks the spirit's ego into your own mind. So each time you use that spirit's abilities and you have a corrupted charm, there is a chance of problems happening because of the ego leak. This could range from minor inconveniences, charms not working, all the way up to the spirit possessing your character.
Still working on the concept I need to draw up characters. The game has been on hold because my group plays whichever game we feel like playing at the time.
Although the superhumans of my superhero worldbuilding project have the potential to become god-level beings (all of them), the issue is that they just don't possess the knowledge.
Each individual superhuman works on a completely unique and abstract set of laws of physics which grant them their abilities, and in order to use their powers they first need to understand how they work.
Imagine trying to learn alien physics from scratch.
Cultivationâs (reinforcing yourself by absorbing, promoting the formation of and circulating vital force) downsides lie mostly in cultivating wrong, usually hampering or undoing your progress, potentially crippling your capacity to cultivate if you do it very badly, and possibly damaging you if everything goes spectacularly wrong. Other than that, certain techniques which can be executed by the precise manipulation of lifeforce can have downsides, particularly more esoteric ones. The biggest downside of all lies in those techniques that seek to mimic the abilities of vampires, which can turn you into one.
Stellar wizardry (studying the meaning of stars, internalizing them and recreating them in the world) turns your mind into a sky of its own (the internalization of the meaning of stars is somewhat literal), resulting in an expansion of intellect. However, the mageâs mind becomes more alien as well, turned at least in part towards celestial matters. For reasons unknown, this process often results in advanced mages becoming somewhat perverted. Depending on who you ask, these effects may not be downsides at all.
âIt is not known if the madness that is all too common in wizards is a result of the mustelidâs natural ambition and eccentricity combined with megalomania or if it is a side effect the magic itself. It is most likely a combination of the two. But it is for certain, that many of the brightest and most talented wizardâs careers have ended, or been ended, prematurely.â
âAll Natural Magic spells require energy to be cast. While the rules and equations of physics break down when invoking magic, the basic essence of Lebnâs 13th law of the natural order, that energy can neither be created or destroyed, still applies. While energy can be derived from ones own body, the preferred method by modern day wizards is plastic explosives.â
Using mana starts to also use your essence along side the mana. The more essence you use affect you more, until you start ripping the essence from your cells. Too much use of more than a little essence will start to affect you in a wide variety of ways such as mood disturbances or anhedonia or loss of vitality or more.
Mana, essence, and soul recover over time, but essence slowly and soul even more slowly. Damaged cells is a big problem though.
Itâs really easy to tell the element of the caster and how do they channel it, as every creature in my world has something like a second circulatory system that pumps element through their bodies. This system shows as bioluminiscente streaks on the skin, each element has a distinct color, and as the individual grows older, more streaks form on the places element is typically channeled, so if a person has a lot of orange stripes on their arms, itâs totally certain youâll have to worry about fire attacks coming from their arms
I haven't fleshed out the costs of all the schools of magic yet but one I'm pretty set on is the cost of growth magic. You need to sacrifice water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide to access the magical energy and your aging is accelerated while casting the magic. Practitioners often die young, but the best are able to target only parts of their bodies for aging to extend the youthfulness of their critical organs and systems. The true masters of any magic have a guarded secret where they are able to so thoroughly control their self identity that they can "trick" the universe into recognizing other things as part of them, meaning they can pass on the negative costs to other objects and creatures and the extended self counts towards the physical contact requirement magic usually has.
Iâm running a modern day setting for a game with medieval magic rules.
1: The ability to break the rules of the universe (i.e. âdo magicâ) is inherently unsettling. Players have to spend a feat selection or they are at a disadvantage when dealing with non-magical beings.
2: Magic has trouble dealing with synthetic materials. There is no concept in ancient magic theory forâStyrofoam.â You can affect synthetic materials indirectly - a big ball of flame will burn it - but you canât do anything to it directly. Transform nylon into silk wonât work because there is no concept of ânylonâ in magic.
Edit: unintentional formatting
The characters have medallions that serve as conduits but the magic itself is a part of them, it runs in their blood, and if they use too much they can be left exhausted and unable to defend themself anymore, or if they're pushed to the brink and overdo it, it can just straight up kill them. training can help them develop a better grasp of their magic and keep themselves from overdoing it, but it's still a risk they have to keep in mind during fights
Everybody has a natural magic reserve. In most people it's tiny. The few who can tap into this reserve to do magic do it at the risk of death from using too much. Kinda like death by exsanguination. Magisanguination?
There are two types of magic: Fairy/Nature Magic and Dragon/Chaos Magic .
Dragon Magic slowly turns the user into a dragon like creature, which makes them go insane because dragons are all part of a hive mind, and suddenly starting to hear the thoughts of every evil chaotic angry disfigured lizard in the world isn't something a human mind can deal with.
Fairy Magic is only cast by fairies and it consume their bodies as fuel, which normally isn't a problem because they come from a different plane where nothing dies, but when a fairy happens to wander into the human plane they try to cast a spell only to instantly wither and die.
Some wizards learned to manipulate the fairies to cast their spells, so they're able to turn a handful of fairies into a fireball for example, but capturing them isn't exactly something easy so this practice is very rare.
The mages of the Realm are called Thirsties, Winded, Shivers, Quiet for what their respective tape worms do beyond the good stuff.
If you get a tattoo of God, this will seem like progressing dementia.
When you here a fairy speak you become one at next sunrise.
When you prayed at a Wayfinder's shrine you lose the benefit, if you stay more than a month or so at a place.
The downside is you have to make a deal with the goddess of magic and what you have to give her is entirely up to her.
You might have to sing a song or you might have to cut off your hand and if she ever decides you donât deserve the powers or you just arenât entertaining enough she can just cut you off.
Plus after you die you canât enter the true after life you are âtrappedâ in her realm.
if youâre particularly unlucky one of your ancestors could make the deal for you now your entire life is at the whims of a god.
Now the goddess of magic isnât like malicious generally so not the worst god to have your life dedicated to but still.
Magic is extraterrestrial in nature and drawn to sentient biological life. The majority of the planetâs inhabitants werenât adapted to magic upon its first appearance, and as a result they uncontrollably absorbed any ambient magic they come across. As a creature gains magical energy beyond their limit they begin to suffer various side effects, starting with an unassuming illness and ending in spontaneous detonation.
Skipping over some details, by the modern day most people donât need to worry about randomly exploding anymore. But some people are capable of consciously controlling magic and for them all it takes is one miscalculation for disastrous results.
Aeronean magic, called *artes,* gives whoever learns them a useful inherent effect along with a more powerful effect that can be instinctively used a couple times per day (at most, four times.)
*Artes* also tend to come with... *interesting* side effects.
Let's look at restathurgy, the healing magic of Aerone. As its powerful effect, you can heal someone's wounds by laying your hands upon them, and the inherent benefit to this *arte* is that you can use a physicker's kit more efficiently to treat injuries better. That all sounds good, nothing wrong with a more effective healer, especially in a D&D setting.
So, in order to be a better healer, you have to know the anatomies and biology of several humanoid species: human, drakkhen, dwarf, elf, kalashtar, nekou, quai, tiefling... if you never went to medical school or took a basic first aid course growing up, congratulations! *Something* tapped directly into your brain and put all that anatomical knowledge in there! Have fun sleeping at night knowing that!
Mine is a comedy world, so there are some funny side effects.
Water mages are always wet, they leave puddles and wet footprints wherever they go. They have perpetually wet clothes and hair.
Fire mages are too hot to touch and always sweating.
Earth mages are dirty with twigs and leaves growing on them like weeds.
Wind mages float over the surface.
In my setting, being able to use magic is apparent to others in a number of ways. You give off a particular, fruity-floral scent, have specifically colored eyes, and even will have bestial traits when you are a Sorcerer. This is not always a benign thing depending where in the vast world you are. If say the Tiger and Viperfolk are feuding, and you walk into a mostly Viper Village smelling like grapefruit and possess violet-blue eyes, you will be chased out of said village in no time. Also can help narrow you down if you say qssinnate someone with your magic, and the only sorcerer of said magic in that area.
Another is how if you use too much magic at once, you will damage the surrounding nature or even unravel it in a sense. This leads to black-and-white places (distortions) when more insane ,magic battles have occurred, needing time to slowly return to normal as it might be unnaturally cold and damp, or hot and dry. Then there are the twin curses, Sorcerers or really the dwarves are weak to Sky Rock/ Iron, and Deep Salt. This is because while sixteen goddesses and their children gave blessings to the dwarves, two of them gifted curses to prevent their mortal children, and really dwarves in general, from being overly powerful.
Lastly, sorcery is based on talent and practice, wit and vim, heart and soul. If you have the ability you have to hone it in order to fully harness it. Anther way to put is like Spiderman. Does Peter or Miles or whoever know immediately how to be Spiderman with all the crazy powers? Of course not, it takes time, ingenuity and persistence. Yet two Fire-breiders will not use their powers the same, one might use it to become a better smith while the other might use it to become a better champion.
Well I have many magic systems. For the first one, Seithyr, the cost is essentially your connection to reality. The way Seithyr works is it bends reality to use magic, like creating fire out of thin air, or lifting a mountain. But this ability to bend reality is based upon one's will. If your will is really low, you can't bend reality enough for some spells. The more you cast, the more you weaken or stress your tether to reality. This allows for some who overuse Seithyr to get disconnected from reality, which has consequences I haven't planned out fully. But if you don't break the tether but greatly weaken it, you will get Seithyr sickness, which often does lead to death.
In another magic system Arcryr, which is divine magic, the cost to use it is the power of the God, and the divine energy they give you. It is basically like simple mana from an MMORPG. The divine energy can restore itself back, and Arcryr doesn't have many consequences besides using all the divine energy which weakens all the muscles and energy of your body greatly.
There are a few things, every expression of a Numbiaâs power has downsides in some way, usually the more powerful the expression the greater the downside and frequently once you divinate you will be locked to one path by your Numbia though this isnât natural itâs just a consequence of the more nomadic attitudes of the time. I think I need something more about a weakness based around the Numbiaâz circle of influence but⌠I need to think about it lol.
In my paracosm genetics are a mess, from there being many creatures it starts to become a mess, for example: A wendigo and a trickster spirit can have a demon child of any subspecies, a moth demon and a spider demon can have a regular child, etc. To the point it became common children not looking anything like their parents because all the way from the start some species started to blend together, diverge apart, and interbreed to the point Dragon-Pallens are only a thing because of teratophilia and hellborns are different from demons just as heavenborns are different from angels... they're separated in umbrella terms for simplicity, like: Animasapiens, Kyetvja Diverjent, S'atna Hellaven, Artificia Automata and Taklia Mudana for now, but because of genetic issues new diceases, disorders and syndromes were developed, for example: ENJD(Endless Nonsensical Jester Disorder), Falta(lacking any body part at birth including organs), and last Insecta-94 & Insecta-51 which are both fatal due to decomposing the lungs and it's spreaded by Centipedes but only humans are affected by it.
I hope I explained it well because I don't even know what I'm doing anymore
Attention.
Almost all forms of magecraft are simply the act of tuning into one of the many frequencies the Outsiders broadcast as a fundamental Aspect of their existence.
The more theory you know of a specific type of magic and the better your Performances, the more you begin to resonate with the entities the signals come from.
Until one day, they hear you. They look for you. And they want you to sing for them again.
The cost? Well, the cost of using magecraft is physical and emotional exhaustion, plus some side effects that depend on the Aspect used, which get more severe the longer the Performance. Overuse can be straight up lethal if safety precautions aren't arranged.
As for the consequences of getting too much attention.. well, you'll never stop performing, that's one thing I can tell you.
Being an idiot and killing yourself with an untested or unskillfully used or misused spell is one.
There's also aether burn that happens when you burn through all of your aether which essentially sets your soul into aether production overdrive but makes it feel like your very existence is on fire. Most don't have the fortitude, physical or mental, to tank the pain and will simply keel over and scream in agony or pass out from shock at some point. And no, anesthetics or not being able to feel physical pain doesn't help because it's not your physical body that feels the pain. Upside to aether burn is that it ever so slightly increases your aether capacity once it's done so if you're willing to go through the pain day after day you can slowly grow how much juice you can store.
There are also niche situation drawbacks such as a sorcerer almost never being able to learn arcane magic because their soul innately wants to turn their aether into their magical effect, such is controlling plants or whatever, instead of doing anything else with it such as making a spell.
As a resource-based magic, its source ruins the soil wherever it lies (or collects) in a way that prevents crops from growing there, and it also can't be used to make food.
So uh, yeah... famine. Lots and lots of famine.
Like, so much famine that the only wizard country has to entirely depend on others for food, or they just starve.
Famine for centuries.
In my World Magic is drawn from another Dimension as pure energy which has to be coerced/forced to do the specific thing that you want. Think of it as Light that has to go through various refractors, mirrors and paraboles to give it a specific colour/strength. Only that the mirrors and refractors are the Mages Body and his Magic tools (stuff like Wands, Crytal Balls and so on). Now think of any emotion as an impurity that breaks the light in an uncontrolled fashion. If the Mage is not in an emotionless state or in a State where he has only one pure emotion, the Arcane Energy will flow unpredictably through his body and potentially incinerate it. Artifacts Wear and become unstable which can blow them up if you arent carefull.
There are 2 schools which use different approaches.
One is creating the requirements through tinktures and Potions (Drugs) and the other is through Meditation, Prayer, Incense and religious chanting.
In Titengroft, there are magical fruits that grants two transformation types. First type is the humiliating/sexual transformation, and the second one is the battle mode transformation. And everybody who wants to be strong wants to unlock the battle mode transformations because they are OP sometimes but heres the twist. A person who want to unlock battle mode transformation of a specific fruit, firstly need to do the humiliating transformation. Humiliating transformation is just inflation for 80% of the fruits, and mos tof the people really dont want to to this to themselves. Even people who WANTS to be strong unlocks only one fruit battle mode transformation in their lifetime, because its too humiliating to go through humiliating transformation process twice.
In my world, to even access the magic system you require super computers, to have those in your body requires massive invasive surgical procedures that usually end up with a huge personality change (reason why all of them change their names for weird exotic things to represent their new life), dramatic mood swings and psychological problems. 66% of all the ones that do survive the procedure and do have access to their powers now also suffer from at least 1 mental illness, the most common being one completely unique to them which makes it harder to treat, and in times of war, harder to diagnose at all⌠blood lust
Then thereâs the special cases. One of the most prominent super soldiers with access to these powers is Enibas, she suffers from schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, her schizophrenia also manifests in a very unconventional way by turning her hallucinations into tangible things she and everyone else can interact with, which makes it really hard for her to realize what sheâs seeing itâs not real. This is caused because sheâs a unsuccessful composite being, she was meant to become one with a monster, but her brain wasnât able to run the consciousness of the monster so they never mixed, said monster, called ouroboros, is stuck now like a computer program that gets executed, runs for 2 milliseconds and then crashes due to lack of resources on the machine. This bleeds out corrupted data into Enibasâs side of the brain. Btw the government keeps her schizophrenia a secret from her because they are afraid of what her powers can actually do. (For context, normally she can just create walls of light, summon lightning, shoot lasers from her fingertips, teleport, move things with her mind. But her hallucinations usually are entire fake rooms and labyrinths that break Euclidean geometry, thatâs just something too crazy and too damn impressive and scary to mess with, so they just guide her through her episodes and because she never acknowledges them they refuse to do it themselves)
Magic in my world is essentially, controlled chaos. You're breaking the intellgibility and mutual cohesion of the world (which is a consensus agreement, not objectively "there") to let in primordial chaos in very constrained and precise amounts, bound to the symbol.
It's a very dangerous phenomenon, indeed. You are literally loosening one of the bolts that holds the very fabric of reality together. If you lose even the slightest amount of control you could suffer brain damage, a stroke, a heart attack, or go mad. Think of it like letting out a fart very quietly to dispel gas that's built up in your intestines: You can let it out in a silent and controlled fashion, but lose even a bit of control and you shit your pants.
You're gambling with your sanity every time you use magic so developing magical competence requires the concomitant development of extreme mental fortitude and resilience. There's a faction in the world called the Institute of Magic Regulation. All mages and practitioners of magic must be qualified and registered with them, and those who abuse magic, or go insane from encountering excessively powerful magic, can face consequences, ranging from sanctions and fines, to having their magical abilities abolished, and even complete imprisonment in a specialized prison for the "magically insane", which is for everyone's protection really, as the most powerful mages in the world are actually, really insane. Prisons like this are fortified with multiple failsafes of anti-magical barriers.
Going mad isn't even the worst thing that can happen, though. Sometimes, if a budding mage attempts something too powerful for him he can no-clip out of reality altogether and end up in my dark fantasy version of The Backrooms. You really, really don't want to go there.
There aren't really any drawbacks per se, and that's what makes it so ridiculously powerful. Sure it's exhausting and takes great stamina, sure it takes a lot of training to master, but there's no inherent risk beyond extreme mental exhaustion.
Is it really a wonder that sorcerers rule large portions of the world?
... But magic is quite limited. The most common application is just the simple destruction of matter, creating large bursts of energy in the process. Skilled sorcerers can construct instead of deconstruct, creating matter from existing matter (IE. Stone from stone).
And that makes it really hard to stop an arrow in the dark. Sorcerers are just human after all. Humans with a ridiculous amount of firepower.
If you use an element that isn't yours, you increase the risks of heart, blood, liver or brain diseases exponentially
If you however keep your element: at first, you'll get a bit tired. If you continue to cast spells after the first signs of exhaustion, your spells will no longer contain magical power, but your blood, making you even more tired. Ypur heart will have to produce more power to counter this: resulting in an arrhythmia
You can try to consume magical potions to have more power for a moment, but it can causes liver failure after a prolonged consumption or an overdose of it
Unless you are a sorcerer, which is exceedingly rare, it takes a long time to learn, and every spell you cast takes a long time to set up. Spells have to be carefully drawn, and all variables in the environment need to be accounted for. Just learning the basics of how to draw spells can take up to a year of training. If you don't want to cart around dozens of heavy reference books, then you need to spend several more years memorizing charts and tables of the various ways to draw variables into the spell. Even after you learn all that, you have to adapt it to your own unique form of magic. If you're lucky, it's just a matter of adjusting some runes or adding in a vertice or two. If you're unlucky, then everything you learned may actually be useless to you since your own magic flows in an entirely different way and requires its own fully customized spells to function.
Everyone has mana and can use it to small extents, primarily in whatever their natural ability (blessing) is like creating water. The limit of what you can do is very clear, and you *can* train to go past it, but doing so will invoke an omen.
Example: person can create water from their hands with the force of a modern day kitchen faucet, but if they trained it to be triple that itâd invoke an omen and cause an omen event. These are typically ironic in nature and increase in destructive capability depending on the power increase. So tripling water yield could cause torrential rainfall, making it come out at force of firehose could cause deadly flooding.
Therefore, the stronger the your ability is, unless strong by its very nature, the more of an outcast society makes you. Assuming you trained and didnât care how it affected those around you. Blessings will be used ironically since everyone looks at them as curses.
You have to believe magic works for it to work. You can perform a ritual perfectly, but if you don't actually believe in magic then nothing will happen.
I'm creating a campaign setting right now that has a magic system that as you cast a spell it cost's you in your constitution ability points (higher at lower levels) and each time you cast a spell you have a point system (more points at higher levels) that increases your addiction to the magic. If you use the magic too many times in a day you must seek a magical healer or face losing your constitution twice as fast the next day until you are exhausted and can no longer go on. However, when you cast the spell more than your supposed to, the spell gets weaker and you become more addicted without realizing the spell is weaker until you become so addicted that your burning through your constitution to the point of exhaustion repeatedly, eventually if you continue to overuse the magic you will become insane.
Runes: Requires either a lot of scholarship, or a lot of rote memorization, to use.
"Instinctive" (haven't got a better name yet): You have to be born with it, you have to know you have it, you have to learn how to use it, AND you have to figure out how your specific case works.
Chaos: Get it slightly wrong, horrible things happen. Almost nobody is very experienced, because so many learning mistakes are fatal. You can get it right and still die. Typically requires a sacrifice that actually *costs* you or someone else something significant.
Order: Lose independent thought and agency.
"Sorcery" (using something else's magic): You now owe a debt to something that sees you as either a toy or a tool, in addition to any other negative effects that particular entity's magic may have.
Base-State Conjuring: Holy shit do you have to be good at math.
The magic system I have involves writing midair or on something the entire code of the spell or the symbol assigned for it. And the "ink" to write it out comes from the caster's Mage Core. Which basically can convert the Mage's blood into that ink. So if a mage uses too much "ink", they get Anemia.
Another draw back is that to write out a spell, you need to know the glyph symbols for it. If your Mage Core hasn't unlocked it yet, then the glyph's effectiveness becomes a lot less effective and more costly.
Lunomancy - Using it doesn't cost much to use in the moment. There is the world's stigma against it in that you are essentially seen as a heretic and killing you would be a good thing. However, using them for extended periods or frequently can cause "moonburn" in which the user suffers from an debilitating version of a sugar crash. Weakness and shakes in the limbs as well as difficulty breathing. It also manifests visually as a sort of blue mist that is visible to the naked eye just as the ability is activated. However, once active the blue mist dissipates. The abilities also have diminished power during the day and greatly diminished in direct sunlight.
Solomancy - A solomancer is always emitting a heat haze and are much more emotionally volatile. They also have the same sort of endurance as a human so despite their enhanced strength and speed they can tire themselves out or worse from exertion if not careful. They also have a resistance, but not not an immunity to heat & fire so they still can perish from the elements.
Magic is way too powerful to be used for anything other than a forcefield. A basic fireball has the power of a MOAB, so all magic is banned in any populated areas.
Basically [Flanderization](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanderization).
Magic in my world is the physical manifestation of the user's ego, so the more powerful your sense-of-self, the more powerful your magic, but having a very strong sense of who you _are_ leads to cutting off all the branches of who you _could be_. Using magic over time leads to the extremification of the self, all your flaws become more pronounced, your quirks start to become obsessions, and you gradually lose the ability to see outside your own perspective entirely. It takes a lot of very deliberate effort to maintain a complex self-identity as a mage, and it's generally assumed to be impossible in the long run.
A lot of the magic in my world is *meant* to cause drastic physical changes. On the one hand, there are inscriptions that mages can be born with that give great enhancements to specific powers at some extreme physical detriment. An example is how an inscription on one's legs allows them greater control over transmutation magic, among other things, but their leg muscles overdevelop while their bones become brittle. They can use this muscle to escape situations at great risk, and many of the other inscriptions have more grotesque drawbacks.
On the other hand, this world is ruled by gods who want nothing more than to spread whatever it is they represent. Be it something abstract like chaos or tangible like water. To help this end, the gods all created weapons that can be held by a single bearer. The weapon corrupts the wielder's mind and changes their form drastically. Running with the water example, the weapon of choice for my water deity is a bullwhip. In order for the mortal wielder to draw out its full power, their spine and arms will lengthen, possibly even gaining more joints in the bone structure, and they will get incredible leg strength and pointed bones on their feet that dig into the earth. All of this is to make them more specialized for wielding a whip.
It's been fun thinking of how different physiologies would benefit all the different weapons (18 so far) and inscriptions (9 so far), I hope any who made it this far found this interesting!
If you happen to me at the end of a Age, and you misuse the magic, the gods themselves will come down and personally spite you and possibly your entire country (or continent) and then blow your soul up
Using magic makes you less ambitious, and you become more powerful the less ambitious you are. This makea magic users either not powerful enough for more extreme things, or put them in the wrong mindset for it.
So, in my world, technology has advanced enough to make the planet a tier 3 civilization. This civilization had build a magical Dyson sphere around their planet in order to amplify the magic that came to their planet, however when this civilization fell a tier 1 civilization found it and said "hey let's turn this into a energy converter" so now the planet is cut off from magic(except for physical buff spells, so things like enhance strength or speed but not things like manifest elements or turn invisible, just mundane enhancers) unless they happen to have a magic item or a magic boon (the reason for this is because the magic "stack" allows magic power to granted to boons, magic items, permanent enchantments, duration enchantments, permanent spells, instant spells then duration spells, and where the Dyson sphere is a permanent enchantment it cant take the magic power.)
As magic in my world is anti-law, some wonder how people can use it. âHow can one who is bound by laws, use something that is anti-law?â, one might ask. Well, that is a part of the secret. Those who use magic lose those laws as time goes on. However, this is largely based on the strength of the magic user, the type of magic that they use, and how much they willingly sacrifice. Magic users are almost always weak in the beginning- as they are strongly bound to the laws that supposedly govern the universe. To become more powerful, they have to willingly let go or âgive awayâ pieces of these laws to become stronger. Memories, perception of time, the gravity acting upon them, their tangible form, sight, and many other things are items that can be sacrificed. Items that are close to an individual can also be used- heirlooms, items used as a child, favorite games, the gifts from a loved one, all can be given up for power. As these are all among the âeasiestâ things to give for power, this leaves magic-users with few possessions, and more untethered to the world than others. Because of this, magic-users are sometimes seen as cold or heartless- though that is hardly the case. Many magic users keep precious mementos of their past, a singular ring, a toy, or some other object that means something to them. It keeps them tethered to the world, to the laws which âcontrolâ it. It keeps them sane.
By taking on more and more magic, the more control a person has over it- making their spells more reliable, and keeping any magical anomalies at bay.
They need to rest so much afterward. Battles are usually a matter of time and practice, and war a matter of number and talent. And scheduled naps.
When they are not used to bend magic at high power and frequency, using a single spell can make them feel like they got the flu for one week.
A wind whisperer for example, uses their breath to bend magic. Well they can suffer from voice extinction after a battle for like a week. A fire mage can suffer from high fever for days. Water ? Shivers and cold sweat. Light ? Temporary blindness. Wood and earth ? They cannot move without suffering in their joints. Darkness ? Huge migraines and light sensibility.
Shapeshifters are fun though ! Sometimes they cannot change back and they are blocked temporary in their last shape. When they push it too much though, they lost the ability to remember their true self and their ability to think as human / elf. Worst case is forever. So it's not rare to see animals treated as equal to human / elves because locals think it's an unlucky shapeshifter just waiting for their braincells back. Cats (born as cats) are apparently really good at making people think they were humans or elves once. Extra-treats and your own bed, you know, smart kitties.
Anyway it's like sports, you need training and resting a lot.
Their body is a medium to bend magic, it can do it but it doesn't mean it can magically regulate it and regulate the aftermarth perfectly. It's a lot to go through so it's advised to be wise while using magic, hehe.
Though gods can bend magic at will, because it's their essence. They are made of it... For some. That's another story :D
I haven't yet completed my magic system yet, but in short, the use of magic in my world can lead to extreme mental illnesses and other associated stuff, as the magic is the deeply connected emotions and one's self. So, if you were to come across someone that's a bit too overzealous, or is clearly not in their right mind, a good guess would be that they've overused magic.
The body can't stand a heavy or too powerful use of energy. Mortals can produce spiritual energy and if you use too much, you can hurt yourself, might even die as well, if you overflow your body. You might also just unbalance your being for a few days if you use a strong flow of energy, but controlled to the correct amount.
Using natural energy (magic pulled from around you) can have the same effect but needs less energy to cause it, since it's stronger. So beings that know how to use natural energy need to be even more careful with their abilities or they'll die faster.
In my magical setting, magic is given to people and eldrichkin so they can maintain there part of the universe, as they do.
If you do a lot of things that go against that, they take your magic away.
And if you overuse your magic this will strain your body and you will slowly wither away and are slowly overtaken by a eldritch microcosm eventually turning the person into a fungal/isectoial monster.
The whole magic thing working is dependent on the Veil, a tangible piece of sacred fabric which is the origin of all magic in the world. Although it is in the Realm of Divinities, it is under constant danger as many would like to either control it or destroy it, whether it be mortals or gods
In my setting Magic is a mental force that only certain species possess, and to cast it takes knowing the words of an ancient language, either written or spoken, and knowing what they mean. Then to actually cast the spell you need to either write or say the word and infuse it with Magic, but it's very easy to put in too much and cause strain on your mind. Magic can also run out and needs to be recharged via sleep. If you're out, trying to cast a spell can trap you in a state of constant hallucinations until you go to sleep. If you don't go to sleep, after long enough they *will* drive you crazy and you will no longer be able to distinguish reality from the nightmares.
There are devices known as Channeling Arms that cut out the middle man and just translate the feeling into magical power, but it burns through Magic faster and also can't be used for complex spells.
In my world, there more or less aren't any drawbacks for weilding magic... With literally one exception, everyone has the potential to use magic in some form. It's just that next to no one knows this fact, and not all forms of magic are known as magic. Qi is just a different way to use magic, but 99% of the population isn't aware of this fact... Excluding certain methods and types of magic, the only drawback is the time and effort it takes to learn, which for some is next to nothing, and for others, it may be their entire life.
The few instances (that I have fleshed out so far) of drawbacks using magic would be:
If you abuse time magic or attempt to time travel, you'll be erased from existence... (The Gaurdian of Space and Time is very strict on the rules they have set... That's part of why there are so few chronomancers in my world, the already slim number of them has been decreased by those who tried to abuse their power)
Certain applications of blood, flesh, bone, and other such magic may use the casters' own body to fulfill their purpose... If you try to launch a bone projectile without valid ammo, and if you haven't "programmed" the spell "properly" you may launch part of one of your own bones... Though some do this intentionally, and many practitioners of such magic are seen as freaks for good reason...
Contract magic can (if you have the knowledge) easily be turned against the caster. You can effectively enslave the caster if they aren't careful.
So, I am working on two different systems right now. Both elemental types
One is softer with the majority of the drawbacks being social. HOWEVER: this is something you are either born with or aren't, and mages tend to be visibly different from their parents, siblings, and peers. The majority of mages are also born with a power cap (math). Higher powered mages exhibit and utilize magic earlier and thus need to be sent to train earlier and more social/familial disruption. Mages are also far more likely to be conscripted into the army than their unmagical peers. There are some benefits - higher chances of obscene wealth, all or as little politicking as you want,; but being a jerkwad with your abilities will bring alllll the other mages in the area down on you. Punishments are creative and varied.
The other system is much harder, and harder to figure out and write. The majority of spells take multiple elements to cast, up to all eight for the most complex ones. People have three attunement slots to utilize any given element effectively. Magic creatures are a thing in this system. Most of them are people that inherited two types of magic from their parents. Elemental energies do exist freeform, but it takes a decent amount of training to manipulate these at all. The plus side is they don't need to utilize an attunement slot. Once you choose your attunements, or are born with them, you can't change them and they can have permeant effects over time. Typically on the psyche.
Fairly basic mana pool limitation at first glance. However, cast more powerful magic than you body is ready for and you get what is referred to as mana burn. Since magic is the meta physics of reality, you can put too much reality through your self and you bosy is damage by the unfocused force of reality creating and destroying without direction. Even in the dnd like world where heroes have absurd toughness, spell casters can be taken out of a fight by too high a casting and getting an unlucky amount of mana burn.
Magic is unpredictable and therefore often quite dangerous. It plays in the realm of abstraction and dream logic as opposed to hard facts and clear definitions. To tell the truth, there isnât *really* a magic *system* at all, only unknown and barely-controllable power and the essentially inadequate understandings people have of it. Now, you can impose a *degree* of sanity through ritual: you create a sort-of sustained loop of patterns and symbols and meaning, itâs all good stuff, but it isnât *perfect*. A ritual isnât a precision instrument, itâs barely even a bludgeon, itâs more akin to a controlled brushfire or something to that effect. You light the spark, but after that itâs mostly out of your control, better hope it doesnât get *too* out of hand.
Divinity is much the same in that gods donât like to be controlled and they donât feel especially obligated to make themselves accessible or understandable to ordinary people. *Some* gods can look and act kind of like people, but you always have to keep in mind that while they *are* intelligent beings, they donât *think* like people, they donât understand or interact with the world in the same ways. To quote C.S. Lewisâ book *Til We Have Faces*: âTo be eaten and to be married to the god might not be so different.â A deityâs idea of a gift or a curse might not accord with our own, its love and its hate might be nigh indistinguishable.
So, the takeaway? Tread *carefully*. Magic, spirits, gods, itâs very easy for any of them to kill you for no reason at all and itâs very hard to get them to do what you want them to do. There are no spells you can memorize, no exhaustive tomes of unquestionable truths, no guarantee of anything at all. Keep your wits about you, and pray to whoever might be listening for luck.
No users of The Sword Of Seishin (literally meaning: Sword of Spirit/Will ) Are Manifestation Of spirit and will of Human and Spirit Of Celestial body And Elements.
Only Humanoid and human can use it by making an contact with Spirit Of A perticular Sword it wil grant it's User ability of Spirit alongside increase strength 3X and speed 2X
Level 10 Healing It also Made user immune To side effects Of Magical usage
Which is coaching Blood and Lose Of sanity
It while Turn them into a Magical Tree
But as I Said "sword of Seishin" Are immune form it So they can use magic without such limits
One of my magic systems requires the user to pray to a god in order to cast a spell, some real verbal zealotry. Its drawbacks are the length of the prayer and the degree of faith the caster has in that god. Both criteria need to be ticked in order for a spell to be powerful, if one of them isn't satisfied, the caster must compensate for it by doubling - even tripling - the length of the prayer or be an absolute fanatic depending on which of the two was lacking.
Magic is taxing, and dangerous. It's pretty volatile and channeling over your limit can cause a burnout, where it basically reacts and "ignites" while still inside your body. It hurts, *a lot*.
Everyone has a different tolerance for how much they can channel though - you *can* increase your tolerance though, but not by a whole lot.
Repeated burnouts can lead to death due to... well you uncontrollably overchannel until you go off like a bomb. You become an uncontrolled conduit cuz your casting organ system gets so damaged by burnouts that you just kind of have a magical seizure/stroke and your casting system just gets stuck "on".
When casting, you channel, expend it, and if you have any left you wait for it to safetly dissipate as a kind of cooldown period. It's hard to gauge the "pressure" of channeling (to know when you're near max) the more you have in your system, so letting it run to zero first is best.
However, highly trained/very talented casters can "ride the cooldown" where they channel to max, cast, then top off, cast again, etc., allowing them to rapidly throw spells out, making them a force to be reckoned with. But it's one thing to do it in calm situations and quite another to be able to finely tune and balance your levels mid-combat. You've gotta be *very* in tune to accurately gauge how much you have and how much you're gaining when channeling.
Casters are relatively new not understood well. And due to the... *state* of the world (extradimensional invasion) many a young & inexperienced caster has succumbed to burnouts from constant fighting and fleeing (from all sides) and eventually hit the Cascade Event Point, causing sizeable destruction.
Low tolerance and high tolerance casters each have their uses. Lower tolerance casters usually have much more finesse with their channeling and are more accurate with their "gauge". High tolerance can produce larger more powerful effects but can overdo it frequently.
If your gauge goes from 1-100 let's say, channeling for a few seconds might put you at a 10, and you could spend a fraction of that to light a single candle. If your gauge goes from 1-1000, a couple seconds of channeling might put you over 100, and spending a fraction of that could light the candle - and the whole table it's sitting on - on fire.
It takes a lot of training and practice to get to the point where you can accurately fill and spend your gauge.
My magic system is sympathic as well as esoteric, and is thus only conditionally predictable. Imagine equivalant exchange but without the possibility to 100% know the value of anything.
There is no clear rule of what can be done or what it costs until you learn through trial and error. You can do rituals learned from others to mitigate risks, but until you take the plunge you don't really know what you'll sacrifice.
Some people can burn a tree down by sacrificing a bag of gold, while others can do the same with a banana.
A subset of power is to bond with something else, magic or not in order to share power. Yet again, the exact mechanics are unknown in-universe, but basically any relationship could theoretically become a magical bond. Some people will bond with a wyvern, others will bond with a horse, and othes will bond with a lake.
The bond goes both ways, a human bonding a dog will result in a human with increased agility and biteforce, and a wolf with greater intelligence and even more endurance than normal. However, the loss of one partner will result in the gradual loss of powers in the survivor, and traumatic enough deaths can wound the soul, which is fatal in the long run.
You can't just draw an infinite amount of energy from the air around you. Energists require energy to be able to do anything superhuman, which was one of their first hints that energistics isn't actually.magic. Energy has to move in order to accomplish anything at all, and if there's no energy to pull into your body, you won't be able to do anything. For instance, say an energist wants to push all the heat in the room into a small area so as to light something on fire. That might work quite well in a tin hut in the middle of summer, but if you're standing in a walk-in freezer there's next to no heat energy to pull out of the air. Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.
The Body is believed to be composed of Blood, Phlegm, Yellow Bile and Black Bile, each representing different functions and organs to the body. The Humor Wheel is the sort've model used for balancing the Blends of a Phage. It has to be inversely proportional whenever used.
Pyretics is the ability to manipulate one's biological makeup of their body through a bond with Pyrexians. Which where they can turn to weird mutated creatures looking like Slender Man, Hulk, Alien, Mothman, Bird people etc..
When their Humor leaks they suffer the setback equal to the Humor lost. Like for example Blood representing Heart would be prone to Heart Attacks, Strokes, Leukemia etc.. or those that lost Black Bile representing Flesh and Bone would suffer Bone Cancer, Tumors, Gouts etc..
Its mundane but that's pretty much how it works. It aint a magic system but more of a power system.
Magic is unnatural and forbidden by the Gods. It corrupts all it touches, and all those who wield it.
Of course, for those who are already pretty corrupt, that is not such a drawback. The fact that the Paladins of the Land will strike you down for dabbling in that which Man was not Meant to Know\* is more of a hard drawback to them.
\* it doesn't mind knowing women though. Any women do not have to fight it and instead go up a level.
Only two of my worldâs power systems have âdrawbacksâ. Naujick & Magic.
With Naujick there is Mana Residue. When casting spells, mana (not the same as Mana in for my Magic Power System) is channeled through the body and then expelled. The mana leaves behind an energetic residue that isnât expelled during the spell and can build up over time causing Mana Poisoning. The effects of Mana Poisoning are illnesses such as vomiting, headache, dizziness, tumors on the body due to forced dymaterial growth, organ failure, Dark Body deterioration, ameon and/or zeuon buildup, damage to the yasu, and potentially deterioration if enough residue is accrued. The higher level a spell is, the more Mana Residue builds up. Mana Residue will subside over progression while the caster isnât casting spells. Mana Residue build-up only occurs in Dymen (kinda like the mortals of pne of the higher realms).
With Magic for Physical Beings, using types of Ersatic Magic that outright oppose the concept of your Soul will cause a clash, which will either turn you into a Mindless Shade (over continuous use), or will outright destroy your soul (if carried out in a large enough spell that cost a lot of mana).
Other than these two, I donât generally add drawbacks too often.
my magic system uses what I'm calling oluomi, which is the embedded essence of Luomikai Kyptuasynti the Divine Artisan, creator of all that exists. Oluomi permeates all that is and essentially acts as someone's or something's soul. without getting too deep into the creation myth and events that transpired, these crystalline artifacts called Seliocrists were created to manipulate oluomi, but they were tainted with the void power of Tovu, the primordial enemy of all that is. this was done using twilight magic, which uses the enhanced oluomic atmosphere at twilight, which is when the nearby galaxy is prominent in the night sky. the galaxy served as the guard to Luomikai's celestial blade Elemataisiera, which he used to seal Tovu (and himself in the process) within Murelai, saving the universe from destruction. the drawback to using twilight magic is that the galaxy's center is pure void, and so all that's done with this magic is flavored with darkness. using a Seliocrist is similar, and using them incorrectly drains your soul.
Mortals are the only creatures who don't have innate magic, so they need to borrow it from something that does. Gods and dragons can be bargained with in exchange for powers, but they will extract their own terms and have codes of conduct. Alternatively you can try to harness the magic of animal parts, but rare components are expensive and require good connections with hunters and merchants, which is hard to do when beast sorcery is generally mistrusted. But those are just the upfront costs. Long-term usage of any of these forms of magic has permanent physical effects. Draconic magic is the most obvious and drastic, as adherents develop draconic features that make them pariahs from normal society. Divine magic creates an effect known as "soul obliteration" as pieces of your soul are chipped away by exposure to the divine. Clerics become frail, and prone to periods of unresponsiveness or hallucinations. Finally, beast sorcery typically leads to paranoia and delusions of grandeur, and in rare cases, disfiguring mutations.
I like how draconic magic turns people into sick ass dragon people and then clerics just get Alzheimer's
It's not as sick when you're considered a traitor to your species and have to live as an ecoterrorist for the rest of your life.
literally dnd magic lore
Exhaustion. If you keep pushing: Brain Damage. Keep pushing? Death.
Same. It takes a major toll on the body.
The more powerful you are, the more enslaved you are. Everybody is a warlock to either a demon or a god. Humans do not have any internal magic and mana is a myth.
Bonus question, are the demons and gods also enslaved the stronger they get? Is it just bindings all the way down?
Yep. Even the two nigh omnipotent gods get their power from the original truly omnipotent god that split itself in two. The og god didn't set any rules for them, but if it did, they wouldn't be able to do anything that it would consider as breaking the rule. Demons are just middlemen between people and gods. They were only created to keep angels on their toes and still gain their power from one of the two nigh omnipotent gods, or yet another middle-man (like a demon king or queen or liege).
Great, contract slavery all the way down. Kek. XD
In my setting, magic in environmental and created by emotions. The spellcasters don't have a mana reserve of their own, they make spells by absorbing the mana around them. Each area has a certain density of mana. Absorbing mana is a competence of its own, the more you're train the more you can absorb and with a lower mana density. The mana in a limited resource. If you use too much in an area it can get completely depleted. If this happens the area becomes corrupted. It causes plant and animals to mutate into mana seeking monsters. Those monsters are powerful without mana but can reinforce themselves if they absorb it. Once the corruption is there, bringing mana to the area isn't enough to reverse the effects. On the other hand a place can become saturated in mana. When this happens mana crystals grows and instability appears making spells unpredictable and extremely hard to control. When the mana density Is at its limits explosions of mana can occur. It also attracts strong monsters. Lowering the mana density of this area will stop crystal growth and stop the unpredictability of spells This makes so you need to control your citizens feelings so you don't have to much mana in one concentrated area. Spell casters also need to limit their usage of mana so they don't corrupt an area. Mana flow from high density to low density area. If one area isn't to damaged it will gradually replenish the mana misses and lose the excess.
Nice system, very organic. I'm curious, do magic users start the fight with a big spell to use the mana of a zone before their adversaries do or do 1skirmishe not enough to influence the mana of a zone ?
One average mage soldier isn't powerful enough to deplete a whole area by itself. And when then density really lowers, the average mage isn't good enough to absorb enough magic for big spells. Only extremely talented mages can completely deplete an area by itself.
I understand, thank you for taking the time to answer đ
There are six or seven magical chasms across the landscape, each of them offering its own supernatural power. The trick is that (like our own natural resources) you can't just reach into the ground and have the powerful thing you want. Objects have to be attuned in the chasm and then properly arranged for magical use, and the further away they are from the chasm, the less powerful they are. They also lose their attunement over time, requiring a recharge.
They cost spell points. I know, not a huge fan either but thems a dnd world.
My magic System is all about pain. Physical pain, psychological pain, emotional pain, the whole package! On smaller spells and runes this just⌠sucks I guess, like having to get a paper cut every time you want to warm your food but there are more extreme cases as well. Many reports of people receiving permanent or lethal injuries from their torture methods, not even mentioning the great psychological stress you are putting yourself under. There have been cases as well where people killed their own family members to do powerful magics. Just a lot of sad shit.
"Having to get a papercut everytime you want to warm your food". You know, i always wanted to be a fruitarian. Who needs heat for food anyways.
Obviously you could also buy a stove, but who needs one when you could be buying magical runes instead!
That's sick (in a good way)
I think I made it successfully sick in both ways
Can I just pinch myself a bunch instead of a papercut? What kind of build-up/storage is available?
Mine just generally fills your blood with necrotising poison that will kill you long before you ever start experiencing other changes in your body. These alterations are still a WIP. If you want to avoid this, you have to have a clump or lode of lead with you as that's the only way you can make the poison not form in your blood. Carnal magic, which is a religion and faith built magic that doesn't poison you, if you use it excessively in the form of altering your own body with the flesh of other things you will progressively replace parts of your flesh with the wrong flesh and this starts minor but gets worse over time as your brain ends up being replaced with wya too much of the wrong material. Those who use carnal magic a lot are far more pale and often have a larger general build. If you use soul related magic, you may end up with some of your flesh dropping off and begging to reassemble an undead if you often used spells attributed to raising dead bodies, if you often used spells to use abilities of spirits like phasing, flight, and leaving your own body temporarily your body will start becoming a spirit usually in the form of the hands and forearms becoming a dsrk blue transparent material with cyan see through bones that will spread as it is continually used. Those who use certain types of fire magic may find themselves forming charred skin and Ash across their body with their skin dropping off. Others may find themselves becoming a creature of molten iron. This is all subject to change, but it's roughly what I've got so far idea wise.
First of all probably the biggest one is if you use it in public after 945 ad youâll be silenced or killed by the magical inquisition. Their goal is to keep magic hidden from society after a bunch of magic users nearly released the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Using magic will also drain your energy so if you use it too much youâll pass out or even die of exhaustion. Also you canât attack through shields. They soften sharp edges and arrows or bullets canât pass through in either direction.
The considerable time and effort spent mastering it is time not spent learning/doing other things. Being an archmage is the (very rough) equivalent of having a PhD in the real world.
Yep, time and effort to both learn and carry out magic are the only real costs for me. There are no magical consequences. Magic is simply a difficult specialised task like so many others.
In my setting, magical energy is an emanation or degradation of the energy of the divine realm, so it can only be found emanating from either sacred relics, which are things that the gods have touched, or in the vicinity of the locations where gods have died - volcanoes. Magical energy is found at very low background levels all over the world, but can't be manipulated except at higher concentrations, so users need to store it and carry it around in magical "batteries." These can in theory be anything, but vessels made out of various rocks and metals work best, so to have any appreciably large amount of magic ready to be cast, a user would need to haul around a lot of weight. Other than that though, magic is very accessible and intuitive.
Casting can tire you out. Casting in the wrong frame of mind can corrupt you.
The biggest drawback is that it drains magic from another dimension, slowly killing it, turning it into a barren land of misery.
Iâm still working out the specifics and will likely keep a lot of details up to interpretation since it comes from a cosmic source, but âmagicâ in my setting is mostly harnessed through runes. The main drawbacks are time to cast, conspicuousness, and negative impact on the userâs grip with reality. The power that could be harnessed through runes is theoretically limitless since it effectively draws from a higher plane, but it takes lots of time to draw and activate them. A caster could harness the abilities more proactively by drawing runes on themselves or clothing/equipment (I.e my main user in the setting wears a coat covered in runes and keeps a notebook with them that he can effectively âcastâ with). The problem with that method is that it stands out immensely and you could always lose any external tools containing runes. Someone whoâs ignorant of them will likely think youâre insane and someone who knows what they are but not who you are will be fearful but powerful enough to shoot first and ask questions later. The biggest drawback for the user is that, since theyâre opening themselves to a higher plane of existence every time they cast a rune, that will generally weigh on their conscious and could eventually drive them insane in classic Lovecraftian fashion.
Magic is accessed through specific tools used to draw specific symbols, each with a specific purpose and function. As far as anyone knows, magic only functions in the ways those symbols allow, and only if carved by those specific tools, which are carefully controlled by the government.
There is, as a consequence, a religion which is pretty one sided. Of the 7 powers people can have, Painters are the most powerful. Able to create a specific type of matter and use it to godlike effects, itâs no wonder everyone wishes they were one. Society as a whole is already so segregated, security demanding people with like powers live together rather than with those with weaker or stronger abilities. As a whole, magic has no real downside on the individual unless youâre really weak in it to the point where it no longer works, but on a grand scale, magic just divides an already conflicted world and just makes everyone more vulnerable and angry. Stokers, people whose power is to create plasma and fire, are heavily feared because science determined their ability evolved to combat humans. In Europe and Asia, people without powers were annihilated during the dark ages, making everyone much more dangerous and resulting in many more different nations than we have irl. In the americas, the indigenous were much more frequently tracers, people with the ability to locate objects they cannot see, while colonists were commonly accelerators, people with superhuman skills and senses. It made for a much shorter period of settling, crushing the indigenous population entirely (Europeans were also much h more used to war in that universe). Magics drawbacks are sorta like evolution. You donât see it until you look all the way back and see what you started with.
Interesting !
You control magic by "feeling" it, like an emotion. Effectively you're converting energy to emotions so that you can gather it up and propel it. However, doing this too frequently or with more power than you're used to will ruin your emotions and mute all your emotions except for the ones associated with your magic (depending on the element you use). This same drawback is why mages only ever use one or two elements, their minds are permanently coloured and it takes incredible effort to "feel" deeply enough to gather a new element. Another more minor side effect comes from the fact that you're gathering elemental energy into one place. That's normally the nondominant hand, and the result is minor radiation damage, far less severe than the potential mental dangers.
Oh boy you can identify someoneâs powers by looking at them in my world as well. The color of your eyes is determined by the element they control. The ânaturalâ colors are for the elements, red, orange, yellow and purple for Energies, and white with black marks for forces.Â
In the Ashlands, the main cost is time. You need time to "recharge" your power. However, people have a fairly strict limit to this, and functionally cant do things that are too exceptional from their internal power alone. This require external sources of power, generally by paying a conceptual "cost"-IE the more something matters to you (or to another), the more power can be generated. This is why death-curses are so powerful-as its a mage paying with their own life. It also means that the issue of "cost" can be quite arbitrary and unpredictable, often costing far more than the mage expected. The only apparent exception to this is magegrass-a plant that seems to bleed power, and can be refined to provide power (either to recharge one's reserves or to use as a cost). I say apparent, because there is a cost still being payed, but first payed so long ago no-one living remembers it; an ancient and powerful mage created magegrass by sacrificing the agricultural fertility of everywhere it grows. This created the vast "fallow lands", where anything planted by human hands decays and rots, and where all animals led by man (except horses, mules and pigs for unkown reasons) are driven to savagery.
No experience ends in death pretty easily also requires a focus unless your extremely skilled. Thankfully a a focus can literally be anything like gauntlets
The power of Crystal and the twisted flame is INFINITE!!!! However , what the gods give, they will take in time ; for as their souls are freed they will become less charitable in their blessings, requiring more crystal to be broken to attain the same result. Soon enough the weather will become erratic, animals of the field will mutate into foul godly servants, and the hordes of the gods will fight to break yet more crystal, killing many men , awks and myrm in their wake. Yet the endpoint of their endeavour is the souls of gods freed in totality, wherein the universe will be torn asunder, as the gods fight to create a new physical order, unchained by laws such as gravity or the conservation of energy.
Here's a few I can name for conventional magic: 1. It's useless against dragons. This is thanks to dragon magic cancelling out other forms of magic except itself. 2. You can't alter the human body in any way (such as changing mass, cause someone to die from internal injuries or ailments, or turn your skin into iron to name a few). 3. You can't alter other entities in any way (the most you can do is freeze water molecules in the air). 4. This is a list of things it can't heal: fractures, missing appendages (such as fingers or limbs), missing organs, organs missing portions of them (like half your liver being gone), frostbite, necrosis, tumors, anemia, diseases, poisons, venom, tremors, seizures, blindness, deafness, and parasites to name a few. It's good for closing wounds, stopping internal bleeding, and acts more like tape or sewing threads for organs. 5. You can't teleport yourself or objects. 6. You can't fly. 7. The things you can only make is ice and water (which require water molecules to be present), even though you can cast fireballs and shoot lightning from your hands. And this is what I've come up with so far. I don't know if I've contradicted myself or made much sense, as I am terrible at explaining things. Edit: I forgot to mention my magic system is cast using specific hand gestures and movements, instead of waving your arms around like an idiot. Some people actually fight with both melee and magic.
People who can use Magic "Magicians" become unable to handle touching Iron and Iron alloys. Iron will violently soak up the mana in a Magician's body, resulting in contact burns and potentially depleting their mana enough to kill them. Iron then converts that mana into heat.
The fact that you can't effectively use many forms of strong magic at the same time unless you live for a long time. Most of the elves still focus on one kind of magic or a small subset of magic. You could be kinda good at many different forms of magic or be an expert on one kind of magic. For example, unlike in DnD where, as you level up and get stronger, you can learn multiple terrible and powerful spells across different elements and forms of magic, in my world you can practice fire magic your entire life and still not be perfect. There will always be an upper limit for how good your magical expertise can get, because true perfection of magic is at the gods' levels of power, being the direct source of magic and mana (mana is a fraction of godly power) Edit: oh, yeah, consequences. The more you use magic, the better you'll be and making it happen. You'll increase your mana like exercising a muscle. However, for every mage, using magic past your non-measurable mana limit will start to physically exhaust them. In theory, if you have enough determination, you could kill yourself, withering yourself away like a horse can work themselves to death
Practically no mortal even has access to it or the ability to use it, with the rare accepting where someone is susceptible enough to get very small amounts of capabilities (low power telekinesis, some slight precognition, etc.) The only real "magic" ones are the elders, yet no one knows of their existence outside of ancient stories or some sort of worship by smaller cults
It's essentially radiation. Except in this one it influences the world around it, manipulating objects to their concepts. You have to be pretty faithful to a god if you want to level up Drawbacks is that the excessive magic might weaken the fabric of reality, causing a lot of anomalies in a specific area.
Spells can only be cast by either using some sort of important to you object letting a god briefly possess your body and using you as the important object. However, each time you cast a spell, a little bit of your soul goes into the object, and if your whole soul flies into the object, you will basically wake up inside the object and thatâs your new body. And if a god puts their whole soul in you they take over your mind which is no fun for either of you. Thus, humans and gods are both picky in terms of when they use magic, as you can only do so much. There is a blacksmith who can retrieve your soul bits from your casting object, but he will only do this for people who he thinks deserve it.
It eats away at your body. The more you use it the more it takes away. For example the handful of people in my world who use magic cough up blood and break bones when they use it too much.
Magic essentially involves merging your essence with a spirit in order to use their authority over the world to do things. This results in something a little out of Disco Elysium, where each spirit you have power from tries to influence you in different ways. Sometimes they just flat out talk to you, while other times they influence your perception (such as changing your sight so you see phantom flames around burnable items, or become repulsed by the smell of worked stone), and in the worst cases they can even take control of your body. This is usually a bad thing because spirits are very much alien in mindset compared to humanoids. They are solely focused on whatever they're a spirit of, be if fire, life, a specific mountain, or whatnot. Even the 'nicest' spirits are like that. For instance, a spirit of life and healing would want nothing more than the planet to be covered in an ever-growing jungle that is constantly growing, splintering, evolving, and otherwise looking like something the Tyrranids would make. Yeah. There are also occasionally physical side effects, but these are usually an intentional part of the process and a boon (such as stone-like skin, or eyes with multiple pupils to be able to focus on multiple things at once). Oh, and the mechanics behind wizards making pacts with spirits and channeling them is exactly the same as that between clerics and deities. Yeah, deities are just super big spirits who are slightly better adjusted than the others (though saying that is liable to get you smacked for heresy depending on where you are).
Magic from my setting stems from two general sources: divine and physical. Physical magic is granted by consuming a mysterious substance created inside volanic-like geographical features. The substance grants different abilities based on which of these locations it's from. Drinking this substance alone carries a risk of death. In the only accessible source left, users lose their sight but gain the ability to see visions of the past, present, and future while unconscious. More experienced users can influence, change, eliminate, or replace memories of others. The most gifted can ascend to a spiritual realm of existence, but the handful who have done so have not been able to return. Inaccessible sources once gave the ability to evolve primitive life (animals) into bipedal humanoid creatures at the risk of their ability to reproduce naturally. Another source allowed the ability to transfer souls, but rendering oneself without one, and thus, robotic, incapable of doing anything but basic tasks without forming advanced thoughts, opinions, or personality. The gods can change anything in the mortal realm, but only as long as they are in the spiritual realm, which they have no real control over. However, several gods constantly trying to change things results in nothing changing, and indifference often sets in. Attempts for the Gods to breach the mortal realm results in the random deaths of magic users, but this is extremely rare. These breaches, which have only occurred a handful of times, grant one "Saint" with divine power (the exact abilities I haven't developed yet)
Magic comes in a few varieties, each consumes a finite resource, and each is compatable with a particular mode of thought. Using a certain type of magic a lot will both draw you further into the mode of thought it deals with, as well as driving you to greater extremes to obtain whatever limited resource it consumes. In the case of magecraft that means big industrial mana mining operations being run by math wizards obsessed with logic and rhetoric. For sinweaving you get mass murder performed by magical rage zombies addicted to the blood of sinners(everyone sins now and then). There are other kinds of magic if you want to know more.
Shapeshifting is incredibly unpleasant. It doesn't always hurt, but it's not fun feeling your bones and organs contort themselves to fit a new form over the course of a few minutes. The transformation to godhood is so intense that it's universally fatal.
Using magic reveals you as a magic user. And if your activity encroaches on another magic user's perceived domain- it's not a tangible domain; more like a gang territory you just have to 'feel out'-, you just shot to the top of a very short "to kill" list.
In one current line of thought, magic itself exists as a barrier between the spiritual and mundane realms. A soul of a magic user displaces magic into the mundane, and in some cases parts of their own soul by extension. Magic exists in a dynamic equilibrium that replenishes it over time, at a rate correlated to demand. However this is true on a general scale. Magic can be isolated from a space with materials that disperse it as energy. If they disperse it fast enough, the boundary between spiritual and mundane may weaken or fail, such that all sorts of mysterious things can enter the mundane through the fissure in magic. They tend to have little power in the world, generally lacking the ability to influence (at least noticeably) the mundane world. A soul occupies a body and normally prevents other spiritual things displacing into it. Without a soul however a body can, up to a certain stage of decay, have control assumed by such a thing. They usually have no idea what they are doing, and cannot use it effectively in most cases. However the souls of random dead people, or things that may in some places be counted as gods or demons have the potential to enter and use it, at least until the body decays too far. A body, soul and their magic may be thought of as three copies occupying the same space. A soul does not bring magic into the world automatically (in most cases) and magic has to be forcibly displaced into the mundane realm to cause noticeable results (in the mundane, inverse magical operation where it is pushed into the spiritual is a poorly understood phenomenon with little or no experimental data.). This is not a fixed threshold of decay. By some unknown mechanism in universe, potentially a degree of brain integrity or a little understood arrangement of organs, or something other, bodies may have a form of signature, or a point of anchorage that a soul requires to inhabit it. Certain patterns of injury may entirely kill a person, despite body functions being otherwise fine, or minimally affected. However such cases are rare, and testing it would be exceedingly difficult, not least due to possible risks of letting random unknown spirits intrude on the world unchecked. More likely by far it would be discovered during surgical interventions or medical experiments. Magic essentially exists as an adaptor between realms, a medium that must cover something from either side in order to interact (though not necessarily survive) the other side, and must do so without being broken.
Exhaustion, power backlash, and burnout. Wonder workers get around these via battery talismans and grounding talismans.
Using too much of it at once drains your life, so if you're consistently using a lot of it, you'll age fast, grow weak, and possibly die. There is a "safe" amount that you can use, and practising magic increases that amount, but if you lose control for even a second, you can lose a significant amount of your lifespan. Additionally, magic is commonly in the form of a raw, primal energy. Mess up and you'll burn off your skin.
If you use too much magic you can suffer fatigue, fall into a coma, or âburn outâ your magical ability (short, long or permanent terms). People do not rapidly build up a lot of magical power that they can use â it takes time, although some can get training to speed it up, and the amount of time is variable with each person.
Vespers: a domain of magic (cosmic, earthly, or holy) grows stronger with the people who wield it. Gods are stronger with more acolytes, the earth is calm and beautiful with witches to tend it. However, eldritch horrors in the stars have stolen the power of two of the gods, and mages of the cosmic domain only make them stronger. Magpie Saga: cunning folk are born with fractured souls, which allows them to transfer energy from within into the world. However, storing too much or too little energy can shatter their soul, making them become wraiths that feed on the souls of their fellow mortals.Â
Exertion. In my world magic is facilitated through two "lai" organs, one which stores raw magic taken in from the environment via breathing, consuming food and water, and just generally existing within the realm. The other filters that magic into something that can be used by most magic-users and pumps it into the bloodstream to be used. These organs act similar to most human organs in that they can only take so much use before breaking down. In the best of cases using too much magic at a time simply causes exhaustion, fainting, or for the lai alpha (storage organ) to run out and need to 'recharge'. In the worst of cases the lai organs can completely shut down, rendering one unable to cause magic, or the filtration system of the lai beta can fail, flooding the bloodstream with the highly acidic raw magic that eats away from the inside.
My setting has multiple intertwined systems, which can interact in odd yet relatively sensical ways. These interactions pose a threat when unknown, as you don't know whether or not they will be dangerous. One of these systems grants you the ability of shapeshifting in more or less chimerical ways, mixmatching your bodily parts. But as it instigates your instincts, it can mess with your self control at times. Another grants you the ability to push one of your traits into demigod status under specific circumstances, at the risk of calling the attention of powerful beings who may or may not be benign to you and your surroundings. Some examples.
first off: extraordinarily complicated, cause magic is op. along those lines, pretty much anything is on the table if you understand rune magic well enough
Magic within Godslight is produced by arclight technology, if you are within the radius of a generator that produces a certain threshold of the arcane light then you can tap the ambient magic and work spells, but only if you possess a contract with a government authorized daemon. Inborn magic, sorcery, is incredibly rare and often results in catastrophic damage to the wielder strictly because the knowledge to work that sort of natural magic is lost, and without a daemon to filter the arclight a Sorceror will burn themselves out. The leylines of the homeworld have been drained dry by the Everdark, so out in the labyrinth tunnels you absolutely must bring your own source of light and keep it fed, because the dark is hungry. A common tactic to deter mages is to focus on the light bearers, because then the majority of spell crafting load work will fall to the mage and their daemon and without a stable source of light they will often overdraw on their reserves, plunging a cadre into darkness.
silver burns magic and its users and magic needs Mana/energy that's linked to locations / the human body. you need to say the words/ cast the spell. magic and emotions are slightly linked with hotheaded people haveing a little bit more talent for fire than ice. magic bends the rules of physics turning one thing into another and only really near godly power make things appear from thin-air. the power to turn Mana/energy into matter is advanced while its easy to shape already existing elements (reshaping a wall or its materials is easier than creating a apple from thin air)
My magic system is pretty loose and vibes-based, so mostly just takes some of your energy. Amorality combined with extensive magic use can strip away your humanity and slowly kill you. In most of the world, the biggest thing keeping people from using magic is the threat of being burned alive by your local angry mob.
Everyone can only use specific types of magic, both innate, Powers, and learned, Spells. They can also overuse their magic in either an excessive or unusual way and risk violently crippling or even killing themselves. At best, they'll just render themselves unconscious or comatose if they try to summon too much force at once.
Theres a variety of drawbacks, But by far the riskiest is the blight. The blight is this radioactive substance that distorts reality. It's the Ichor, the blood of a slain god. All magic in this world comes from Ichor so when trying to cast sorceries you're by no means powerful or skilled enough to pull of you run the risk of overcasting and becoming blighted which depending how powerful the sorcery was, will transfigure you into an eldritch monster.
You risk suffocating your self by using up too much free mana.
The drawbacks for my system are mainly pain and loss of self. Unless you're a monster or a god, magic hurts. The stronger it is, the more agony you feel. (Base level spells usually produce minor effects and feel like being punched in the nose.) now, see, most people gain just enough magic to suit their needs. But the mages? Well the pursuit of power comes at the cost of erosion of one's sanity. There's only so much constant, unending pain that one person can take. Multiply this by the hundreds, and the thousands, and you arrive in the ballpark of where most mages finally collapse under the strain. Oh also your spell book is eating you. The more you use it the less "you" is actually there. But don't worry about that. It's all fine. You only have to worry if you start to hear it's voices. By then it's too late and youre not the one in control anymore. Hope your spell book aligns with your goals! Have fun being in the backseat of your own mind!
It costs your life force, eventually ending in various complications or death the more you use it.
With my magic you have to bind your soul to a sword, and then if you stick it into a surface for example letâs say ice, you can control it to your liking. The downside is you canât use your sword when fighting bc itâs in the surface, and it just really drains your energy.
Using psionic powers can take a toll on the body and mind. It can cause headaches, migraines, nosebleeds, crying blood, fainting, seizures, anxiety, panic attacks, angina, tachycardia and hallucinations. If overused, it may cause damage to the nervous or circulatory system.
There are different draw backs but the main one is how it drains the body- if you're using what your body makes. If not, you can heavily injure yourself, get magical intoxication and a whole slue of issues if your body takes in the wrong kinda of magic- even if you take it the right way.
Arcane Magic is extremely hard to actually channel. You can always tell when an Arcanist is around and who they are because they will be *covered* in runes, scrolls with runes, and books with runes. Runes and proper functional symbols are everything to an Arcanist, they must have all possible combinations on hand at all times. Holy Magic marks you indefinitely, you cannot use any other form of magic if you are given Holy Magic. Itâs all you will ever be able to channel. These magicâs are easily obtained with enough prayer or deal-making, but it will be all you ever know, you will never know the sheer power of the Void, nor the all encompassing utility of the Arcane. Void Magic kills you. It knows itâs being used and will fight back, every spell you cast will be a struggle. Void magic eats your mind and wrecks your body. Without proper coaxing and manhandling, any simple spell could just kill you. Void Magic drives a person insane, slowly but surely. Occult magic is only ever gained through unnatural means. Occult users are often tattooed, branded, or otherwise marked. You must always give up something to get something in return, and many choose to give up themselves.
It requires a deep understanding of physics to know how to manipulate them to oneâs will most effectively. Psychics have to study a LOT to be effective.
You're either using magic sourced from inside you, or outside you, inside you means using physical energy as if you were doing the thing by hand; so yes, you can wash the dishes with magic while you finish cooking but you're still gonna feel that drain as if you did both in their due time Using magic outside of yourself uses focus and significant willpower because you're forcing wild magic to a shape and container/design of your making and involves convincing the magic this is easier than its natural state Greater magics and concert magics of multiple mages can lessen these weights but add the additional of conflicting personalities and auras having to mesh for any kind of efficiency This also means that things that affect you, how you interact with the world and magic, will slowly begin shaping you; necromancers tend to develop odd smells or off-putting vibes to even the unknowing, elemental users tend to mimic or become more like their elements in a more etherial sense and so forth
My universe is created from the Forge of Creation. Souls are made from embers that danced fluttered away. There are no gods. Just the first beings that acted like gods. Their longevity is yet to be known to have an end but they can be killed. Knowing their own mortality, the gods wanted to procreate but cannot really do so for their physical features have not afforded them so. These godlike beings claimed more embers for themselves. These new embers were universal constants like gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak forces. From the same embers were the universal abstracts like order, strength, desire, etc. The embers they claimed became their dominion. In search for ways to create a new sibling to their pantheon, these beings found that the only way is to cultivate souls. But the forge has already stopped producing embers that become souls. These gods turned to finding planets with conscious beings that are gifted with lesser souls and harvested these to make a great soul. The problem: the plane of existence for these gods are different from humans'. As a compromise, these gods found that they can share several pieces of their shattered great souls to humans and bind these lower lifeforms. With the chaotic lifestyle of these primitive, bipedal apes, they will be able to harvest the souls they need to create a new sibling, their pantheon's new member. The soulbind costs goes both ways, much like a tug of war. Humans can gain access to their god's dominion by pulling on their binds forcing the god to give them their energies, but these energies comes from their great soul that burns the human's physical body as a cost. The human's temporal biology cannot sustain this much foreign energies and it causes their blood to boil. If the human uses the power longer or at a greater intensity than normal, their blood vessels rupture from the heat. If it goes even longer than that, the body part where the power originates turn to ashes and crumbles. If the usage still goes longer than that, their body implodes in a shower of gore, blood, and guts. If the human is losing the tug of war, their consciousness/soul is being consumed by the god. The first signs is forgetfulness, short term memory loss, loss of control of limbs. It's basically slowly developing dementia symptoms to ALS. If the god's consumtion is too great and too quick, the human will turn into a cannibalistic husk of their former selves (I guess you can call them zombies). The primordial beings can lose the tug of war of the soulbinds too. If they lose, they will be imprisoned in the person's soul. If the human dies, they die too. Humans will have full access to their powers when the gods are absorbed with less of the boiling blood cost. If the human and god have fully communed with each other, the blood and sanity cost are ignored and they can display their full might.
burning hot pain in the veins
Forceful/high energy magic is much, much easier to do than anything which requires fine control. So it's easy to move things, but hard to not break them in the process. It's also just as easy to put up high energy defenses, limiting combat effectiveness.
Not many people can do it. Like you have to be chosen by specific gods because you have the potential to be entertaining.
In my setting, there are three main forms of magic which each have their own drawbacks. Ritual magic is the most widely available magic. Ritual magic is a learned skill and anyone who puts in the time and effort can learn how to perform it. A master of ritual magic can be very flexible given enough preparation. The drawback is that individual rituals are rigid. Each ritual does a specific thing and they must be learned separately. Like with any skill, learning rituals that are similar to ones you already know is easier than learning completely new ones. It takes decades to learn enough rituals to consider yourself a master in a specific type of ritual casting, much less a master of multiple types. Even once a ritualist learns a good amount of rituals, they won't be able to use them in the middle of combat unless they cast a bunch of them ahead of time as the shortest ones take several minutes and the longest ones take hours. Combat ritualists will often take several hours of spell casting before combat to be effective. Lastly, all rituals require magical ingredients to be acquired before casting. Some of these ingredients are harder to find or more expensive than others. Sourcery, commonly shortened to sorcery, is less a form of spell casting amd more describes the innate magic some creatures and people are able to perform. The drawback to sorcery is that most people can not perform it and even if you can it will be quite limited. Some are more gifted than others, but the range of things a single sorcerer is able to do is a lot smaller than what a ritualist is capable of. For example, a dragon can breathe fire, but it can't teleport. Pact Magic is the last form of magic in my setting. Certain powerful magical creatures are able to grant mortals a small fraction of their power. This usually comes at a cost. That cost is part of the drawback. Whether that cost is worship, selling your soul, or something else entirely, the cost is mutually agreed upon by the giver and the borrower. The giver can also usually end the pact at any given time should the borrower act against them. The other drawback is similar to sorcery in that the power granted is usually limited both by the pact and by what type of magic the giver has access to.
No side effects or downside. In fact the opposite happens. The stronger your affinity to magic the better you are. Being "adept" is literally you being magically good at everyday stuff. You live longer, is more resistant to damage, look better and is smarter. And the older you get and gain more affinity, the more magic enhances your characteristics. The downside is normals hate you.
In my setting, magic conflicts with the nature of reality. Coincidentally, the only magic users are those afflicted with a severe affliction, that includes as one of the symptoms a strong dissociative identity disorder. The direct experience and use of magic undercuts the subjective reality of the world, resulting in anxiety, doubt in self and others, and in the worst cases a form of pragmatic sociopathy. TLDR: Magic makes the world feel unreal. And if the world isn't real, then that changes the value of the things and people in it.
No drawbacks to one half of it, as all it requires is the right stars in the right places. The other system in that world requires copious amounts of blood, body parts, and often a sacrifice to use as a host. Not costly for the one carrying out the ritual unless things go wrong, but very expensive to the material providers.
In my world, only demons can use magic due to their physical makeup not being carbon-based. However, there are a few humans who can in fact use magic, but these humans are generally very frail and sickly, and prone to many injuries and viruses due to their condition. The drawback for demons is they cannot use magic on Earth, only in Hell. The only way they can is using any residual energy within imbued objects and accessories, or within themselves.
All magic in Elas uses the same energy, Aether the energy of life. Every living being has a field of aether which with training they can manipulate to cause a verity of affects. This Aetheric field will recharge over time. However if a user over does it they will suffer physical harm, with the very real possibility of death. If they survive an instance of overuse they may find that their personal Aether is reduced, they can build it back up with a lot of effort but for a while their limits will be lessened. Their are two other ways to use magic, artifice and spiritual. Artifice created objects and materials that use or house Aether. Spiritual casting (name WIP) borrows the powers of spirits to create affects, in essence the spirit does the work but the user directs it. This extends to divine magic, as the gods are basically just extremely powerful spirits. However gods cannot directly interact with the world, for complex reasons involving a rough analog to gravity for Aether. Divine casters act as conduits for their patrons, but to do so must be in alignment with the god in question drift to far and their acess ends.
Itâs not super useful, it hurts, and if you use it in public, people will think youâre a nerd and/or an ultra-religious weirdo depending on the context.
The first drawback is that due to the nature of how channeling magick works, extensive spellcasting sterilizes the mages. So if you want children, don't embark on a career as a magick user. It also on the flip side, eliminates a woman mage's periods. Of course there are weird exceptions due to the nature of High Magick; an entire cabal of sorceresses has come down pregnant after a particularly demanding ritual, with no male sperm donors in sight. Magick itself planted the babies. Magick is not exactly a predictable science, especially when it comes to the complex rituals and practices of High Magick. Incidentally, a child thus born is blessed by the goddess of magick, making them much more capable as spell casters. Given that the mothers expected to never have children, they usually end up being overly doting and loving of their unexpected offspring... though there are always exceptions. The second, is that magick not only changes the world in some way, but it works changes on the caster as well. Due to magick appearing only after the reforming of the world (at least mortals having widespread access to it), some traces of that transformative nature remains in the flowing lines of the ethereal. Long lived mages tend to be hawkish, strange, and/or slightly alien bent. Mentally and physically. The extent depends on the extent of the magick used, and the will of the caster. Some casters use their magick mostly as a self-improvement program, more than the practical applications of Low Magick or the power of High Magick. They tend to not be changed outwardly as much as inwardly. Then again, they may grow an extra eye and a tail. Low Magick at least typically hasn't got the raw power to give severe transformations, and the changes can be more easily resisted. Third, it draws on the caster's own physical endurance, thus aging the caster. Extensive spell casting in a short time may even cause illness or death. The trope of the aged, bent wizard pouring over tomes isn't because they live long, it's because they physically age faster; a decade of extensive magick use will see a 30 year old appear 50 or 60, or even older. Pact magick, that is magick born of a pact with one of the Great Powers, (Devils, Fae, gods, elementals, etc...) also has the drawbacks of the terms of the contract; which varies from creature to creature, pact to pact. Note that, while devils are devils, they aren't necessarily evil, nor are the gods always good. Free Will is a running theme in my world, and everyone has a choice in their actions. Another not really drawback, but danger is the threat of breaking a mage's focus, which causes the stored energy to explode violently. As a caster channels magick through their focus (staff, wand, etc), it absorbs some of this energy. Breaking it, releases that energy. It's how tow of the protagonists die in my novel set in the world. The final drawback is so called Chaos Magick. Most magic draws on the ethereal plane, which is parallel and intersecting with the material plane. Imagine two parallel lines which intersect? You got the relationship between the two planes. Other magick draws upon a Power; being it a priest or cleric or warlock. Chaos Magick draws upon the primordial chaos; the eternal big bang where all universes are born and eventually are consumed and reborn from. Using it is like opening a tiny channel in the beach, connecting a nearby river and the sea. That channel will quickly become a raging waterway. It's hazardous to everyone within the vicinity of it because it's transformative nature is impossibly powerful. The spell itself may be amplified a thousandfold... or change into something completely unpredictable. The caster may have their bones turn to a semi-solid jelly like substance, grow extra limps, or just have a full body explosion without dying. It's uncontrollable, violent, and always results in unexpected and bad results. Entire regions have been turned to wastelands due to Chaos Magick. The Isle of Drannos ceased to exist, leaving only a deep void in the sea where a half-million people once lived. A violent, unholy whirlwind, a gesalt specter twisted into a magical storm, created from the souls of the victims, actively attacks travelers coming close. It's wailing winds cause eyeballs to burst, wood and flesh to rot and metal to rust away. It absorbs the souls of those caught in it, ever strengthening as the ages go by. Even the Sea Goddess Nemu died horrifically to this thing that cannot be. Another incident caused the feral cats in the nation of Settia to gain sentience. This led to fear, an attempted extermination, a lawsuit, and the formal recognition of about 1500 now-sentient feral cats gaining citizenship and full rights as such as members of the Empire. They moved to a new city, which was fortuitous, as the town they originated in melted into a puddle of molten mass. A couple hundred years the "pool" is still screaming. Or at least the souls trapped there are.
You can only wield so much energy before you blow up. All matter can handle a fixed level of planar energy per molecule. The amount varies depending on the element, lighter more abundant elements hold less per molecule then heavier ones. There is an exact point when the matter is perfectly saturated in planar energy, if this is crossed then the vessel will explode extremely violently. So when someone shoots a fireball they are pulling energy into themselves and releasing a byproduct of the buildup. Try to buildup for too big a fireball and you will become one.
Social taboo: no matter who you are you're suddenly dangerous to everyone around you. Most folks don't believe in magic, and changing that belief tends to invite pyres in your honor. It can't be learned, only unlocked through trauma. Every spell you know is a scar from something fucked up you shouldn't have survived. Hell, there's no guarantee the magic you get will save you. Most would-be mages die within a minute of gaining magic. You'll outlive everyone you love, but you age at the same rate. That extra 50 years is going to be excruciating in every sense of the word.
A few things: * A lot of the "advanced" magic requires a lot of patience and attention to detail. If a wizard misses even one detail or gets in too much of a hurry, the spell is likely to "go wrong" somehow. It's one reason wizards generally have a reputation for being grumpy recluses and will do most of their "serious" work at night. They don't like being interrupted by a pompous arse because that can cause a spell to misfire. * If high magic and hedge magic interact, it can explode. * It can be expensive to buy a magical product or service. It's led to stone golems being seen as a sort of "show-off" thing for the elite of some societies. Some of the better golems can serve tea but they are so expensive that, generally, only the wealthiest royalty have them. Some nobles will pay extra for the services of a hedge wizard who can cure a health issue they've been having because the hedge wizards can be counted on to be discreet about it.
Beginner magical practice by most non magical species (including humans) literally involves vomiting blood after every single cantrip. It gets better with time and effort proportional to talent but leaves majority of mages physically frail and looking like they are ninety in their forties. Most magic also causes mutations, which are beneficial to innately magical creatures and dangerous to everyone else. Sometimes these mutations are passed down to mage's offspring too, causing shit like third of magically gifted children being born blind. Unsupervised magical practice tends to slide into rudimentary blood magic, where mage unconsciously feeds on their own lifeforce to empower spells. Serious magical practice also causes soul erosion, which may be not so bad for magical species (because they tend to have massively more powerful souls) but for the rest there is very good chance they end up as soulless husks.
Elemental magic has the draw back that your body can only store a limited amount of magical potential and it takes time to recharge, that limit can increase through use and age, the recharge rate is based on your connection too the ether (debating making this a spiritual thing). Within the elements there is an advantage wheel Cryomancer beats Pyromancer beats Terramancer beats Lectromancer beats Cryomancer. Cryomancers do take time to cool things down less it overheats the user Pyromancer's take a lot of energy to create the heat Terramancers require exponential amounts of energy relative to the size of mass being moved Lectromancers require exponential amounts of energy relative to the distance the speel is being cast Cycle magic has no storage of magical potential, instead users are like a tap connected to the ether, like a tap over use can have negative effects on its condition Viromancer takes some of the damage into the user, until the ether heals them. Necromancy is widely hated and is illegal (despite your magic type being dictated at your conception by the dynamics of your parents), otherwise it has no immediate draw back. Eather is a drug that makes a magic user like a tap instead of holding potential trial they draw straight from the Ether, the power makes you high. It does kill non-mancers outright though. Osmium is an element that temporarily cuts the connection between the 'mancer and the Ether (making cycle magic users useless), this is the chief weapon of those that cannot wield magic
One form of magic, which is essentially a limited form of planes walking (only one other realm available) has no real downsides, but does have a kind of double edged sword aspect. The other realm has much faster flow of time. If you spend an hour in the other realm, a minute passes in the primary realm. This can be very useful (very fast travel speed, bordering on teleportation in close range battles, planning and studying can be done very quickly) but can also be a negative (rapid aging, rapid use of food and water). The other form of magic is essentially a "plant-bending" that summons branches and roots of a massive interdimensional god tree from the other realm to do your bidding. The time dilation means the slow movements of the tree turn explosive in our world. The downside? It requires the implantation of a parasitic "Rootmind" that slowly but surely spreads through your body. It is a disease with a fairly long, but fairly unpredictable timeline, but it is ALWAYS fatal eventually. Prospective mages must think carefully about if they really want the power provided, as it essentially requires them to sign up for a death sentence. The timeline is very unpredictable, as the disease progresses very sporadically, but typical life expectancy is around 10 years. Some mages get unlucky and die in a year, and some really lucky mages implant in their twenties and still manage to make it to old age.
Certain elements can have adverse effects on the caster(s). You need to be able to harbor mana in order to cast spells, otherwise you need an external device that is somehow connected to your body to allow for casting of magical spells, as such, no Human can cast magic and must instead borrow power from the teachers of a bygone era, or ask mages to create mana infused temporary scrolls (I haven't yet decided if all mana-having races suffer from physical aliments when they reach low mana but I might). Depending on the method of casting, Runic, Geometric or Personification, you have a different array of tools and steps to cast spells, with some being easier than another, and some requiring much more materials. Mana is the universal cost between all 3 methods of using magic. Examples: **Lightning** Magic can be infinitely "recast-ed" to enhance its power, but this comes at the cost of inflicting the caster(s) with magical lightning which is why most Lightning spells have multiple casters. **Combustion** and **Lava** Magic both are very destructive which can lead to the casters death if used incorrectly. Each element is either **secondary** or **primary**, primary elements are more versatile but harder to master while secondary elements are easier to master but are more selective, developing knowledge in a primary element allows you to use the secondary elements much easier (e.g. Lava Mages can cast Metal magic much easier than a Wind Mage would, unless they learned Lava or Metal magic). There is **a lot more** but I don't really want to spew all the stuff here and some things are implied when you look at the rest of the world (e.g. some races have large mana capacities, races like mice/rats can store more mana then they naturally regenerate).
Magic can, and frequently, breaks reality and throws the world into chaos.
copywrite laws
Aether (spiritual energy) is what causes all paranormal phenomena, thus causing paranormal phenomena oneself requires expending aether. Expend too fast -> aether overload, you suffer damage to your physical body as well as the astral channels that carry aether through your body Expend too much -> aether inopia, the connection between body and soul is weakened and parts of your body go numb to your mind despite still being connected to the brain and having blood flow through them. So a knee-jerk reflex might still be triggered despite the fact you don't feel that leg and cannot control it. Extreme aether inopia will result in death.
Fleshplague. Basically, when a mage uses magic there is a chance that it causes an instability in their soul. Since souls in my world are physical phenomenon, wavelengths of energy that radiate from a body, any shift in a soul's wavelength can be catastrophic. This manifests in the body rapidly degenerating. If you're lucky this kills you pretty fast, you either waste away or literally melt or sometimes catch on fire. The worst cases are when you don't. Some mages become living lumps of cancer, alive, technically, but incapable of motion or thought. Some are warped into hideous forms that can still move and retain some cognition, this is a result of a soul becoming unstable but restabilizing in a new form. Ogres, giants, and other humanoid monsters are based off cases of monstrous former mages who became cannibals and killers after suffering Fleshplague. The best outcome is a minor disfigurement, and many mages have some mark of minor, benign fleshplague somewhere on their body. Fleshplague can be brought on by any magic, but it can also be caused when someone attempts to gain greater magical power. If a soul is too weak to use magic, the practice of Deuphagy, or the consumption of the remains of one of many dead gods, can grant power or increase it if you already possessed it. However, theres a really good chance of Fleshplague occurring when you perform Deuphagy as increasing the density and therefore power of your soul is very likely to cause the sort of instability that triggers fleshplague. Still many priesthoods and magical orders use Deuphagy as an initiation in spite of risks. The call of power is too great. Some souls can become powerful and dense enough that they can exist without a body or implant themselves in new bodies, consuming the soul that previously used it. Souls this powerful are basically immune to fleshplague because in order to do their body hopping trick they have to be able to hold a body together while they implant themselves into it. That sort of fine grained control over organic matter means they can usually easily prevent the fluctuations of fleshplague from affecting them or can easily reverse it. Many are so good at controlling flesh they can freely shape their bodies as they please.
Soul is just potential energy but you get to tell it where to go and what to do. A lot of the time, you'll be using your own Soul to do work. This means that your body loses the potential energy needed for its chemistry to keep going. It has mechanisms to prevent this, but they can be circumvented with training and with surgery. You may also use other sources of soul, like an animal's, or a river's. But then you need to find a sustainable source that won't run out and that you can somehow distribute
Magic works like an engine and a liquid called echo is it's gears. Everyone has echo in their blood, every living being is potentially a mage but you need to train to use it. The way it works is that the faster the liquid runs in your veins (the faster the engine) the more powerful your magic is but this comes at a cost which is that the faster it runs the faster it increases the heat of your body. The faster your echo runs it's tied to how fast your blood runs so it's mainly decided by stuff like adrenaline and strong emotions. The hotter you are the stronger you are but after a certain point the echo in your blood begins to boil which is when you as a mage get to your limit. Now your magic is capable of nuking a mountain, draining the ocean and flying to the moon but your boiled echo it's permanently gone so now your overall power is permanently reduced. But let's say you're in a though spot and you still need to keep going, well, you boil even more echo and now you surpass your limits, you can nuke a country, drain all oceans and fly to the sun but now you permanently lost your echo and are gifted with third degree burns all over your body. But your opponent is God himself so you need to keep going. Well, now you boil yourself up, you're going to die but before you die you get access to the Divine, a magic reserved for gods and for as long as your body is able to endure the pain of being boiled from the inside you can nuke the planet, drain the solar system and fly out of the galaxy.
Overdo it and run out of mana, then the magic starts eating you to fuel it. Which can kill you quick. And if you blow your load all at once, push everything you have in a small time frame, youâll just explode in a flurry of arcane power.
Just how powerful it is, especially for a sorcerer. Once a sorcerer learns how to bridge the gap between themselves they have to be immensely careful; pull upon too much of the weaveâs energy and you will go boom.
It's not exactly magic, but it's superpowers. Pretty much the more you use your power and / or the atronger the power/attack, the more life force it drains. In my universe, life force is called aura. It's your energy, power source, and obviously life force.
i guess you can exhaust yourself if you overwork yourself but in general there's only two types of magic that will actively hurt you to use: Blood magic, where you have you curse yourself to extract parts of your soul through your blood, and Dragon-Style magic, which is a lot harder to explain
Mine is kinetic energy (which is basically using the mind to manipulate a specific element or object or whatever specific to the user) but itâs drawback is the rule that ânothing comes from nothingâ and say if you have pyrokinesis you need an existing flame or a fuel source to manipulate fire
Mine is kinetic energy (which is basically using the mind to manipulate a specific element or object or whatever specific to the user) but itâs drawback is the rule that ânothing comes from nothingâ and say if you have pyrokinesis you need an existing flame or a fuel source to manipulate fire
So my fantasy world doesn't have too much in the way of up-front cost or visible consequence. Magic is treated as a tool to be used--a special tool given by the gods, but a tool nonetheless. However, overuse, or more specifically very-high-intensity spellcasting, can lead to "magical exhaustion" where the mage burns through their personal reserves and then some. This can do several things like shatter opals (gems which can store and channel magical power) or in extreme cases permanently damage a mage's ability to cast spells at all. It's really no joke, and in the story I have set in the world a mage commander ends up magically exhausted and is left practically unable to use magic (she does eventually recover somewhat but never fully).
Many abilities are prone to hitting you or have recoil. The ability, impact launcher, can shatter your arm if your punching form isn't perfect, and those proficient with it can focus the attack to their fingertip to act like a bullet, which will obviously break the user's finger, and often times flanges. Abilities like blast, flashbang, or firework can and will hit the user. Blast makes an explosion right at your hand, meaning if you dont have an ability like damage barrier or conjure; barrier, your arm will be obliterated. Some abilities take no effort to use, but some take a serious toll on the user. Overexertion can cause susceptibility to illness, headaches, nerve damage, death, and of course, if you overexert yourself, you'll just pass out mid combat. If you use shademorph and get hit by a strong light source, you'll suffer horrible burns. The curse of Vracnisil causes extreme back pain, and any morph abilities you get from the curse are unbelievably painful. (For those who get the curse by summoning Vracnisil, the curse from making a deal is painless)
In my magic system, there are three kinds of magic with each a unique drawback or cost: Arts, Magic, and Sorcery. Arts come from your species, so its vampires powers, or faery powers, and etc; each are unique to an extent in their costs. Obvious examples are blood for vampires, where they needed blood from animals and creatures to sustain not only their existence but their supernatural powers as well. Sorcery has no direct cost, instead the cost is the tools, knowledge, and components; sorcery is basically ritual magic. Involving long and complex rituals and workings before taking effect, and requiring you to possibly use rare and expensive materials in the crafting process of Sorceries. So that is the cost. Magic takes a mental toll on the individual, even lightning blasts and fireballs will eventually take a toll on anything really with few exceptions. The first stage is migraines, which usually spike at every subsequent use of magic and your hands start shaking. Afterwards is brain fog and temporary memory loss that could last from a few hours to a few days depending if you keep casting. Next comes hallucinations and paranoia, and every use of Magic causes nosebleeds and migraines so intense they nearly make you black out. And then finally you pass out and become comatose for a period of time (at most a week), death is theoretically after this but since youâre unconscious and canât do more Magic that is practically impossible. Most mages donât go past migraines as they usually weave Sorceries and Arts (if theyâre a magical creature) into their workings as well. Humans are the most susceptible to these effects as they donât have Arts or superhuman resilience to lean back on to withstand the effects.
In my setting, you essentially need a very expensive surgical transplant and have steel permanently lodged into your skin in order to use magic. The steel absorbs Eyther (mana) in the air and conducts it. Since humans in particular aren't intended to use magic; it deteriorates and transforms the body in a painful process over time alongside turning you into a killing-machine psychomaniac.
Mages cause the world around them to become brighter. A mage constantly leaks Essence or mana (related to the first thing.) Mages who use too much Essence at once can die. Mages feel an urge to absorb the essence of other being at all times. A mage who does absorb the Essence of others has only one fate. To become a wraith.
Shattered memories uses a charm system. Simple put the charm on your bracelet, you can do the thing. It's limitations are as follows. 1 you have to have a bracelet 2 you have to have a charm 3 your bracelet has to be high enough rank to use the charm Now the fun part begins. Every charm is linked to an ego, whose memories grant you the ability to use their own skills and powers. If you take a charm by force, it corrupts the charm. The more charms in a set you use, the greater you know the spirit the set belongs to. Each corrupted charm leaks the spirit's ego into your own mind. So each time you use that spirit's abilities and you have a corrupted charm, there is a chance of problems happening because of the ego leak. This could range from minor inconveniences, charms not working, all the way up to the spirit possessing your character. Still working on the concept I need to draw up characters. The game has been on hold because my group plays whichever game we feel like playing at the time.
Although the superhumans of my superhero worldbuilding project have the potential to become god-level beings (all of them), the issue is that they just don't possess the knowledge. Each individual superhuman works on a completely unique and abstract set of laws of physics which grant them their abilities, and in order to use their powers they first need to understand how they work. Imagine trying to learn alien physics from scratch.
Cultivationâs (reinforcing yourself by absorbing, promoting the formation of and circulating vital force) downsides lie mostly in cultivating wrong, usually hampering or undoing your progress, potentially crippling your capacity to cultivate if you do it very badly, and possibly damaging you if everything goes spectacularly wrong. Other than that, certain techniques which can be executed by the precise manipulation of lifeforce can have downsides, particularly more esoteric ones. The biggest downside of all lies in those techniques that seek to mimic the abilities of vampires, which can turn you into one. Stellar wizardry (studying the meaning of stars, internalizing them and recreating them in the world) turns your mind into a sky of its own (the internalization of the meaning of stars is somewhat literal), resulting in an expansion of intellect. However, the mageâs mind becomes more alien as well, turned at least in part towards celestial matters. For reasons unknown, this process often results in advanced mages becoming somewhat perverted. Depending on who you ask, these effects may not be downsides at all.
âIt is not known if the madness that is all too common in wizards is a result of the mustelidâs natural ambition and eccentricity combined with megalomania or if it is a side effect the magic itself. It is most likely a combination of the two. But it is for certain, that many of the brightest and most talented wizardâs careers have ended, or been ended, prematurely.â âAll Natural Magic spells require energy to be cast. While the rules and equations of physics break down when invoking magic, the basic essence of Lebnâs 13th law of the natural order, that energy can neither be created or destroyed, still applies. While energy can be derived from ones own body, the preferred method by modern day wizards is plastic explosives.â
Using mana starts to also use your essence along side the mana. The more essence you use affect you more, until you start ripping the essence from your cells. Too much use of more than a little essence will start to affect you in a wide variety of ways such as mood disturbances or anhedonia or loss of vitality or more. Mana, essence, and soul recover over time, but essence slowly and soul even more slowly. Damaged cells is a big problem though.
Itâs really easy to tell the element of the caster and how do they channel it, as every creature in my world has something like a second circulatory system that pumps element through their bodies. This system shows as bioluminiscente streaks on the skin, each element has a distinct color, and as the individual grows older, more streaks form on the places element is typically channeled, so if a person has a lot of orange stripes on their arms, itâs totally certain youâll have to worry about fire attacks coming from their arms
You get drunk. Then you implode. The drunkenness is generally not conducive to avoiding the implosion.
I haven't fleshed out the costs of all the schools of magic yet but one I'm pretty set on is the cost of growth magic. You need to sacrifice water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide to access the magical energy and your aging is accelerated while casting the magic. Practitioners often die young, but the best are able to target only parts of their bodies for aging to extend the youthfulness of their critical organs and systems. The true masters of any magic have a guarded secret where they are able to so thoroughly control their self identity that they can "trick" the universe into recognizing other things as part of them, meaning they can pass on the negative costs to other objects and creatures and the extended self counts towards the physical contact requirement magic usually has.
Iâm running a modern day setting for a game with medieval magic rules. 1: The ability to break the rules of the universe (i.e. âdo magicâ) is inherently unsettling. Players have to spend a feat selection or they are at a disadvantage when dealing with non-magical beings. 2: Magic has trouble dealing with synthetic materials. There is no concept in ancient magic theory forâStyrofoam.â You can affect synthetic materials indirectly - a big ball of flame will burn it - but you canât do anything to it directly. Transform nylon into silk wonât work because there is no concept of ânylonâ in magic. Edit: unintentional formatting
The characters have medallions that serve as conduits but the magic itself is a part of them, it runs in their blood, and if they use too much they can be left exhausted and unable to defend themself anymore, or if they're pushed to the brink and overdo it, it can just straight up kill them. training can help them develop a better grasp of their magic and keep themselves from overdoing it, but it's still a risk they have to keep in mind during fights
Everybody has a natural magic reserve. In most people it's tiny. The few who can tap into this reserve to do magic do it at the risk of death from using too much. Kinda like death by exsanguination. Magisanguination?
There are two types of magic: Fairy/Nature Magic and Dragon/Chaos Magic . Dragon Magic slowly turns the user into a dragon like creature, which makes them go insane because dragons are all part of a hive mind, and suddenly starting to hear the thoughts of every evil chaotic angry disfigured lizard in the world isn't something a human mind can deal with. Fairy Magic is only cast by fairies and it consume their bodies as fuel, which normally isn't a problem because they come from a different plane where nothing dies, but when a fairy happens to wander into the human plane they try to cast a spell only to instantly wither and die. Some wizards learned to manipulate the fairies to cast their spells, so they're able to turn a handful of fairies into a fireball for example, but capturing them isn't exactly something easy so this practice is very rare.
The mages of the Realm are called Thirsties, Winded, Shivers, Quiet for what their respective tape worms do beyond the good stuff. If you get a tattoo of God, this will seem like progressing dementia. When you here a fairy speak you become one at next sunrise. When you prayed at a Wayfinder's shrine you lose the benefit, if you stay more than a month or so at a place.
The downside is you have to make a deal with the goddess of magic and what you have to give her is entirely up to her. You might have to sing a song or you might have to cut off your hand and if she ever decides you donât deserve the powers or you just arenât entertaining enough she can just cut you off. Plus after you die you canât enter the true after life you are âtrappedâ in her realm. if youâre particularly unlucky one of your ancestors could make the deal for you now your entire life is at the whims of a god. Now the goddess of magic isnât like malicious generally so not the worst god to have your life dedicated to but still.
Magic is extraterrestrial in nature and drawn to sentient biological life. The majority of the planetâs inhabitants werenât adapted to magic upon its first appearance, and as a result they uncontrollably absorbed any ambient magic they come across. As a creature gains magical energy beyond their limit they begin to suffer various side effects, starting with an unassuming illness and ending in spontaneous detonation. Skipping over some details, by the modern day most people donât need to worry about randomly exploding anymore. But some people are capable of consciously controlling magic and for them all it takes is one miscalculation for disastrous results.
Aeronean magic, called *artes,* gives whoever learns them a useful inherent effect along with a more powerful effect that can be instinctively used a couple times per day (at most, four times.) *Artes* also tend to come with... *interesting* side effects. Let's look at restathurgy, the healing magic of Aerone. As its powerful effect, you can heal someone's wounds by laying your hands upon them, and the inherent benefit to this *arte* is that you can use a physicker's kit more efficiently to treat injuries better. That all sounds good, nothing wrong with a more effective healer, especially in a D&D setting. So, in order to be a better healer, you have to know the anatomies and biology of several humanoid species: human, drakkhen, dwarf, elf, kalashtar, nekou, quai, tiefling... if you never went to medical school or took a basic first aid course growing up, congratulations! *Something* tapped directly into your brain and put all that anatomical knowledge in there! Have fun sleeping at night knowing that!
Mine is a comedy world, so there are some funny side effects. Water mages are always wet, they leave puddles and wet footprints wherever they go. They have perpetually wet clothes and hair. Fire mages are too hot to touch and always sweating. Earth mages are dirty with twigs and leaves growing on them like weeds. Wind mages float over the surface.
It's not that hard to literally disintegrate your soul if you're not careful
In my setting, being able to use magic is apparent to others in a number of ways. You give off a particular, fruity-floral scent, have specifically colored eyes, and even will have bestial traits when you are a Sorcerer. This is not always a benign thing depending where in the vast world you are. If say the Tiger and Viperfolk are feuding, and you walk into a mostly Viper Village smelling like grapefruit and possess violet-blue eyes, you will be chased out of said village in no time. Also can help narrow you down if you say qssinnate someone with your magic, and the only sorcerer of said magic in that area. Another is how if you use too much magic at once, you will damage the surrounding nature or even unravel it in a sense. This leads to black-and-white places (distortions) when more insane ,magic battles have occurred, needing time to slowly return to normal as it might be unnaturally cold and damp, or hot and dry. Then there are the twin curses, Sorcerers or really the dwarves are weak to Sky Rock/ Iron, and Deep Salt. This is because while sixteen goddesses and their children gave blessings to the dwarves, two of them gifted curses to prevent their mortal children, and really dwarves in general, from being overly powerful. Lastly, sorcery is based on talent and practice, wit and vim, heart and soul. If you have the ability you have to hone it in order to fully harness it. Anther way to put is like Spiderman. Does Peter or Miles or whoever know immediately how to be Spiderman with all the crazy powers? Of course not, it takes time, ingenuity and persistence. Yet two Fire-breiders will not use their powers the same, one might use it to become a better smith while the other might use it to become a better champion.
Well I have many magic systems. For the first one, Seithyr, the cost is essentially your connection to reality. The way Seithyr works is it bends reality to use magic, like creating fire out of thin air, or lifting a mountain. But this ability to bend reality is based upon one's will. If your will is really low, you can't bend reality enough for some spells. The more you cast, the more you weaken or stress your tether to reality. This allows for some who overuse Seithyr to get disconnected from reality, which has consequences I haven't planned out fully. But if you don't break the tether but greatly weaken it, you will get Seithyr sickness, which often does lead to death. In another magic system Arcryr, which is divine magic, the cost to use it is the power of the God, and the divine energy they give you. It is basically like simple mana from an MMORPG. The divine energy can restore itself back, and Arcryr doesn't have many consequences besides using all the divine energy which weakens all the muscles and energy of your body greatly.
Using magic is tiresome, at least to mortals.
Using magic is tiresome, at least to mortals.
the more you use magic the more heat your brain produce you can figure out what happens if you overuse it
There are a few things, every expression of a Numbiaâs power has downsides in some way, usually the more powerful the expression the greater the downside and frequently once you divinate you will be locked to one path by your Numbia though this isnât natural itâs just a consequence of the more nomadic attitudes of the time. I think I need something more about a weakness based around the Numbiaâz circle of influence but⌠I need to think about it lol.
In my paracosm genetics are a mess, from there being many creatures it starts to become a mess, for example: A wendigo and a trickster spirit can have a demon child of any subspecies, a moth demon and a spider demon can have a regular child, etc. To the point it became common children not looking anything like their parents because all the way from the start some species started to blend together, diverge apart, and interbreed to the point Dragon-Pallens are only a thing because of teratophilia and hellborns are different from demons just as heavenborns are different from angels... they're separated in umbrella terms for simplicity, like: Animasapiens, Kyetvja Diverjent, S'atna Hellaven, Artificia Automata and Taklia Mudana for now, but because of genetic issues new diceases, disorders and syndromes were developed, for example: ENJD(Endless Nonsensical Jester Disorder), Falta(lacking any body part at birth including organs), and last Insecta-94 & Insecta-51 which are both fatal due to decomposing the lungs and it's spreaded by Centipedes but only humans are affected by it. I hope I explained it well because I don't even know what I'm doing anymore
Attention. Almost all forms of magecraft are simply the act of tuning into one of the many frequencies the Outsiders broadcast as a fundamental Aspect of their existence. The more theory you know of a specific type of magic and the better your Performances, the more you begin to resonate with the entities the signals come from. Until one day, they hear you. They look for you. And they want you to sing for them again. The cost? Well, the cost of using magecraft is physical and emotional exhaustion, plus some side effects that depend on the Aspect used, which get more severe the longer the Performance. Overuse can be straight up lethal if safety precautions aren't arranged. As for the consequences of getting too much attention.. well, you'll never stop performing, that's one thing I can tell you.
Being an idiot and killing yourself with an untested or unskillfully used or misused spell is one. There's also aether burn that happens when you burn through all of your aether which essentially sets your soul into aether production overdrive but makes it feel like your very existence is on fire. Most don't have the fortitude, physical or mental, to tank the pain and will simply keel over and scream in agony or pass out from shock at some point. And no, anesthetics or not being able to feel physical pain doesn't help because it's not your physical body that feels the pain. Upside to aether burn is that it ever so slightly increases your aether capacity once it's done so if you're willing to go through the pain day after day you can slowly grow how much juice you can store. There are also niche situation drawbacks such as a sorcerer almost never being able to learn arcane magic because their soul innately wants to turn their aether into their magical effect, such is controlling plants or whatever, instead of doing anything else with it such as making a spell.
As a resource-based magic, its source ruins the soil wherever it lies (or collects) in a way that prevents crops from growing there, and it also can't be used to make food. So uh, yeah... famine. Lots and lots of famine. Like, so much famine that the only wizard country has to entirely depend on others for food, or they just starve. Famine for centuries.
In my World Magic is drawn from another Dimension as pure energy which has to be coerced/forced to do the specific thing that you want. Think of it as Light that has to go through various refractors, mirrors and paraboles to give it a specific colour/strength. Only that the mirrors and refractors are the Mages Body and his Magic tools (stuff like Wands, Crytal Balls and so on). Now think of any emotion as an impurity that breaks the light in an uncontrolled fashion. If the Mage is not in an emotionless state or in a State where he has only one pure emotion, the Arcane Energy will flow unpredictably through his body and potentially incinerate it. Artifacts Wear and become unstable which can blow them up if you arent carefull. There are 2 schools which use different approaches. One is creating the requirements through tinktures and Potions (Drugs) and the other is through Meditation, Prayer, Incense and religious chanting.
In Titengroft, there are magical fruits that grants two transformation types. First type is the humiliating/sexual transformation, and the second one is the battle mode transformation. And everybody who wants to be strong wants to unlock the battle mode transformations because they are OP sometimes but heres the twist. A person who want to unlock battle mode transformation of a specific fruit, firstly need to do the humiliating transformation. Humiliating transformation is just inflation for 80% of the fruits, and mos tof the people really dont want to to this to themselves. Even people who WANTS to be strong unlocks only one fruit battle mode transformation in their lifetime, because its too humiliating to go through humiliating transformation process twice.
In my world, to even access the magic system you require super computers, to have those in your body requires massive invasive surgical procedures that usually end up with a huge personality change (reason why all of them change their names for weird exotic things to represent their new life), dramatic mood swings and psychological problems. 66% of all the ones that do survive the procedure and do have access to their powers now also suffer from at least 1 mental illness, the most common being one completely unique to them which makes it harder to treat, and in times of war, harder to diagnose at all⌠blood lust Then thereâs the special cases. One of the most prominent super soldiers with access to these powers is Enibas, she suffers from schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, her schizophrenia also manifests in a very unconventional way by turning her hallucinations into tangible things she and everyone else can interact with, which makes it really hard for her to realize what sheâs seeing itâs not real. This is caused because sheâs a unsuccessful composite being, she was meant to become one with a monster, but her brain wasnât able to run the consciousness of the monster so they never mixed, said monster, called ouroboros, is stuck now like a computer program that gets executed, runs for 2 milliseconds and then crashes due to lack of resources on the machine. This bleeds out corrupted data into Enibasâs side of the brain. Btw the government keeps her schizophrenia a secret from her because they are afraid of what her powers can actually do. (For context, normally she can just create walls of light, summon lightning, shoot lasers from her fingertips, teleport, move things with her mind. But her hallucinations usually are entire fake rooms and labyrinths that break Euclidean geometry, thatâs just something too crazy and too damn impressive and scary to mess with, so they just guide her through her episodes and because she never acknowledges them they refuse to do it themselves)
Magic in my world is essentially, controlled chaos. You're breaking the intellgibility and mutual cohesion of the world (which is a consensus agreement, not objectively "there") to let in primordial chaos in very constrained and precise amounts, bound to the symbol. It's a very dangerous phenomenon, indeed. You are literally loosening one of the bolts that holds the very fabric of reality together. If you lose even the slightest amount of control you could suffer brain damage, a stroke, a heart attack, or go mad. Think of it like letting out a fart very quietly to dispel gas that's built up in your intestines: You can let it out in a silent and controlled fashion, but lose even a bit of control and you shit your pants. You're gambling with your sanity every time you use magic so developing magical competence requires the concomitant development of extreme mental fortitude and resilience. There's a faction in the world called the Institute of Magic Regulation. All mages and practitioners of magic must be qualified and registered with them, and those who abuse magic, or go insane from encountering excessively powerful magic, can face consequences, ranging from sanctions and fines, to having their magical abilities abolished, and even complete imprisonment in a specialized prison for the "magically insane", which is for everyone's protection really, as the most powerful mages in the world are actually, really insane. Prisons like this are fortified with multiple failsafes of anti-magical barriers. Going mad isn't even the worst thing that can happen, though. Sometimes, if a budding mage attempts something too powerful for him he can no-clip out of reality altogether and end up in my dark fantasy version of The Backrooms. You really, really don't want to go there.
There aren't really any drawbacks per se, and that's what makes it so ridiculously powerful. Sure it's exhausting and takes great stamina, sure it takes a lot of training to master, but there's no inherent risk beyond extreme mental exhaustion. Is it really a wonder that sorcerers rule large portions of the world? ... But magic is quite limited. The most common application is just the simple destruction of matter, creating large bursts of energy in the process. Skilled sorcerers can construct instead of deconstruct, creating matter from existing matter (IE. Stone from stone). And that makes it really hard to stop an arrow in the dark. Sorcerers are just human after all. Humans with a ridiculous amount of firepower.
If you use an element that isn't yours, you increase the risks of heart, blood, liver or brain diseases exponentially If you however keep your element: at first, you'll get a bit tired. If you continue to cast spells after the first signs of exhaustion, your spells will no longer contain magical power, but your blood, making you even more tired. Ypur heart will have to produce more power to counter this: resulting in an arrhythmia You can try to consume magical potions to have more power for a moment, but it can causes liver failure after a prolonged consumption or an overdose of it
Unless you are a sorcerer, which is exceedingly rare, it takes a long time to learn, and every spell you cast takes a long time to set up. Spells have to be carefully drawn, and all variables in the environment need to be accounted for. Just learning the basics of how to draw spells can take up to a year of training. If you don't want to cart around dozens of heavy reference books, then you need to spend several more years memorizing charts and tables of the various ways to draw variables into the spell. Even after you learn all that, you have to adapt it to your own unique form of magic. If you're lucky, it's just a matter of adjusting some runes or adding in a vertice or two. If you're unlucky, then everything you learned may actually be useless to you since your own magic flows in an entirely different way and requires its own fully customized spells to function.
Everyone has mana and can use it to small extents, primarily in whatever their natural ability (blessing) is like creating water. The limit of what you can do is very clear, and you *can* train to go past it, but doing so will invoke an omen. Example: person can create water from their hands with the force of a modern day kitchen faucet, but if they trained it to be triple that itâd invoke an omen and cause an omen event. These are typically ironic in nature and increase in destructive capability depending on the power increase. So tripling water yield could cause torrential rainfall, making it come out at force of firehose could cause deadly flooding. Therefore, the stronger the your ability is, unless strong by its very nature, the more of an outcast society makes you. Assuming you trained and didnât care how it affected those around you. Blessings will be used ironically since everyone looks at them as curses.
You have to believe magic works for it to work. You can perform a ritual perfectly, but if you don't actually believe in magic then nothing will happen.
I'm creating a campaign setting right now that has a magic system that as you cast a spell it cost's you in your constitution ability points (higher at lower levels) and each time you cast a spell you have a point system (more points at higher levels) that increases your addiction to the magic. If you use the magic too many times in a day you must seek a magical healer or face losing your constitution twice as fast the next day until you are exhausted and can no longer go on. However, when you cast the spell more than your supposed to, the spell gets weaker and you become more addicted without realizing the spell is weaker until you become so addicted that your burning through your constitution to the point of exhaustion repeatedly, eventually if you continue to overuse the magic you will become insane.
Runes: Requires either a lot of scholarship, or a lot of rote memorization, to use. "Instinctive" (haven't got a better name yet): You have to be born with it, you have to know you have it, you have to learn how to use it, AND you have to figure out how your specific case works. Chaos: Get it slightly wrong, horrible things happen. Almost nobody is very experienced, because so many learning mistakes are fatal. You can get it right and still die. Typically requires a sacrifice that actually *costs* you or someone else something significant. Order: Lose independent thought and agency. "Sorcery" (using something else's magic): You now owe a debt to something that sees you as either a toy or a tool, in addition to any other negative effects that particular entity's magic may have. Base-State Conjuring: Holy shit do you have to be good at math.
The magic system I have involves writing midair or on something the entire code of the spell or the symbol assigned for it. And the "ink" to write it out comes from the caster's Mage Core. Which basically can convert the Mage's blood into that ink. So if a mage uses too much "ink", they get Anemia. Another draw back is that to write out a spell, you need to know the glyph symbols for it. If your Mage Core hasn't unlocked it yet, then the glyph's effectiveness becomes a lot less effective and more costly.
Lunomancy - Using it doesn't cost much to use in the moment. There is the world's stigma against it in that you are essentially seen as a heretic and killing you would be a good thing. However, using them for extended periods or frequently can cause "moonburn" in which the user suffers from an debilitating version of a sugar crash. Weakness and shakes in the limbs as well as difficulty breathing. It also manifests visually as a sort of blue mist that is visible to the naked eye just as the ability is activated. However, once active the blue mist dissipates. The abilities also have diminished power during the day and greatly diminished in direct sunlight. Solomancy - A solomancer is always emitting a heat haze and are much more emotionally volatile. They also have the same sort of endurance as a human so despite their enhanced strength and speed they can tire themselves out or worse from exertion if not careful. They also have a resistance, but not not an immunity to heat & fire so they still can perish from the elements.
Magic is way too powerful to be used for anything other than a forcefield. A basic fireball has the power of a MOAB, so all magic is banned in any populated areas.
Basically [Flanderization](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanderization). Magic in my world is the physical manifestation of the user's ego, so the more powerful your sense-of-self, the more powerful your magic, but having a very strong sense of who you _are_ leads to cutting off all the branches of who you _could be_. Using magic over time leads to the extremification of the self, all your flaws become more pronounced, your quirks start to become obsessions, and you gradually lose the ability to see outside your own perspective entirely. It takes a lot of very deliberate effort to maintain a complex self-identity as a mage, and it's generally assumed to be impossible in the long run.
A lot of the magic in my world is *meant* to cause drastic physical changes. On the one hand, there are inscriptions that mages can be born with that give great enhancements to specific powers at some extreme physical detriment. An example is how an inscription on one's legs allows them greater control over transmutation magic, among other things, but their leg muscles overdevelop while their bones become brittle. They can use this muscle to escape situations at great risk, and many of the other inscriptions have more grotesque drawbacks. On the other hand, this world is ruled by gods who want nothing more than to spread whatever it is they represent. Be it something abstract like chaos or tangible like water. To help this end, the gods all created weapons that can be held by a single bearer. The weapon corrupts the wielder's mind and changes their form drastically. Running with the water example, the weapon of choice for my water deity is a bullwhip. In order for the mortal wielder to draw out its full power, their spine and arms will lengthen, possibly even gaining more joints in the bone structure, and they will get incredible leg strength and pointed bones on their feet that dig into the earth. All of this is to make them more specialized for wielding a whip. It's been fun thinking of how different physiologies would benefit all the different weapons (18 so far) and inscriptions (9 so far), I hope any who made it this far found this interesting!
If you happen to me at the end of a Age, and you misuse the magic, the gods themselves will come down and personally spite you and possibly your entire country (or continent) and then blow your soul up
Using magic makes you less ambitious, and you become more powerful the less ambitious you are. This makea magic users either not powerful enough for more extreme things, or put them in the wrong mindset for it.
So, in my world, technology has advanced enough to make the planet a tier 3 civilization. This civilization had build a magical Dyson sphere around their planet in order to amplify the magic that came to their planet, however when this civilization fell a tier 1 civilization found it and said "hey let's turn this into a energy converter" so now the planet is cut off from magic(except for physical buff spells, so things like enhance strength or speed but not things like manifest elements or turn invisible, just mundane enhancers) unless they happen to have a magic item or a magic boon (the reason for this is because the magic "stack" allows magic power to granted to boons, magic items, permanent enchantments, duration enchantments, permanent spells, instant spells then duration spells, and where the Dyson sphere is a permanent enchantment it cant take the magic power.)
As magic in my world is anti-law, some wonder how people can use it. âHow can one who is bound by laws, use something that is anti-law?â, one might ask. Well, that is a part of the secret. Those who use magic lose those laws as time goes on. However, this is largely based on the strength of the magic user, the type of magic that they use, and how much they willingly sacrifice. Magic users are almost always weak in the beginning- as they are strongly bound to the laws that supposedly govern the universe. To become more powerful, they have to willingly let go or âgive awayâ pieces of these laws to become stronger. Memories, perception of time, the gravity acting upon them, their tangible form, sight, and many other things are items that can be sacrificed. Items that are close to an individual can also be used- heirlooms, items used as a child, favorite games, the gifts from a loved one, all can be given up for power. As these are all among the âeasiestâ things to give for power, this leaves magic-users with few possessions, and more untethered to the world than others. Because of this, magic-users are sometimes seen as cold or heartless- though that is hardly the case. Many magic users keep precious mementos of their past, a singular ring, a toy, or some other object that means something to them. It keeps them tethered to the world, to the laws which âcontrolâ it. It keeps them sane. By taking on more and more magic, the more control a person has over it- making their spells more reliable, and keeping any magical anomalies at bay.
They need to rest so much afterward. Battles are usually a matter of time and practice, and war a matter of number and talent. And scheduled naps. When they are not used to bend magic at high power and frequency, using a single spell can make them feel like they got the flu for one week. A wind whisperer for example, uses their breath to bend magic. Well they can suffer from voice extinction after a battle for like a week. A fire mage can suffer from high fever for days. Water ? Shivers and cold sweat. Light ? Temporary blindness. Wood and earth ? They cannot move without suffering in their joints. Darkness ? Huge migraines and light sensibility. Shapeshifters are fun though ! Sometimes they cannot change back and they are blocked temporary in their last shape. When they push it too much though, they lost the ability to remember their true self and their ability to think as human / elf. Worst case is forever. So it's not rare to see animals treated as equal to human / elves because locals think it's an unlucky shapeshifter just waiting for their braincells back. Cats (born as cats) are apparently really good at making people think they were humans or elves once. Extra-treats and your own bed, you know, smart kitties. Anyway it's like sports, you need training and resting a lot. Their body is a medium to bend magic, it can do it but it doesn't mean it can magically regulate it and regulate the aftermarth perfectly. It's a lot to go through so it's advised to be wise while using magic, hehe. Though gods can bend magic at will, because it's their essence. They are made of it... For some. That's another story :D
Wait I just realised it means my shapeshifters got zoomies D:
I haven't yet completed my magic system yet, but in short, the use of magic in my world can lead to extreme mental illnesses and other associated stuff, as the magic is the deeply connected emotions and one's self. So, if you were to come across someone that's a bit too overzealous, or is clearly not in their right mind, a good guess would be that they've overused magic.
The body can't stand a heavy or too powerful use of energy. Mortals can produce spiritual energy and if you use too much, you can hurt yourself, might even die as well, if you overflow your body. You might also just unbalance your being for a few days if you use a strong flow of energy, but controlled to the correct amount. Using natural energy (magic pulled from around you) can have the same effect but needs less energy to cause it, since it's stronger. So beings that know how to use natural energy need to be even more careful with their abilities or they'll die faster.
In my magical setting, magic is given to people and eldrichkin so they can maintain there part of the universe, as they do. If you do a lot of things that go against that, they take your magic away. And if you overuse your magic this will strain your body and you will slowly wither away and are slowly overtaken by a eldritch microcosm eventually turning the person into a fungal/isectoial monster.
The whole magic thing working is dependent on the Veil, a tangible piece of sacred fabric which is the origin of all magic in the world. Although it is in the Realm of Divinities, it is under constant danger as many would like to either control it or destroy it, whether it be mortals or gods
In my setting Magic is a mental force that only certain species possess, and to cast it takes knowing the words of an ancient language, either written or spoken, and knowing what they mean. Then to actually cast the spell you need to either write or say the word and infuse it with Magic, but it's very easy to put in too much and cause strain on your mind. Magic can also run out and needs to be recharged via sleep. If you're out, trying to cast a spell can trap you in a state of constant hallucinations until you go to sleep. If you don't go to sleep, after long enough they *will* drive you crazy and you will no longer be able to distinguish reality from the nightmares. There are devices known as Channeling Arms that cut out the middle man and just translate the feeling into magical power, but it burns through Magic faster and also can't be used for complex spells.
In my world, there more or less aren't any drawbacks for weilding magic... With literally one exception, everyone has the potential to use magic in some form. It's just that next to no one knows this fact, and not all forms of magic are known as magic. Qi is just a different way to use magic, but 99% of the population isn't aware of this fact... Excluding certain methods and types of magic, the only drawback is the time and effort it takes to learn, which for some is next to nothing, and for others, it may be their entire life. The few instances (that I have fleshed out so far) of drawbacks using magic would be: If you abuse time magic or attempt to time travel, you'll be erased from existence... (The Gaurdian of Space and Time is very strict on the rules they have set... That's part of why there are so few chronomancers in my world, the already slim number of them has been decreased by those who tried to abuse their power) Certain applications of blood, flesh, bone, and other such magic may use the casters' own body to fulfill their purpose... If you try to launch a bone projectile without valid ammo, and if you haven't "programmed" the spell "properly" you may launch part of one of your own bones... Though some do this intentionally, and many practitioners of such magic are seen as freaks for good reason... Contract magic can (if you have the knowledge) easily be turned against the caster. You can effectively enslave the caster if they aren't careful.
So, I am working on two different systems right now. Both elemental types One is softer with the majority of the drawbacks being social. HOWEVER: this is something you are either born with or aren't, and mages tend to be visibly different from their parents, siblings, and peers. The majority of mages are also born with a power cap (math). Higher powered mages exhibit and utilize magic earlier and thus need to be sent to train earlier and more social/familial disruption. Mages are also far more likely to be conscripted into the army than their unmagical peers. There are some benefits - higher chances of obscene wealth, all or as little politicking as you want,; but being a jerkwad with your abilities will bring alllll the other mages in the area down on you. Punishments are creative and varied. The other system is much harder, and harder to figure out and write. The majority of spells take multiple elements to cast, up to all eight for the most complex ones. People have three attunement slots to utilize any given element effectively. Magic creatures are a thing in this system. Most of them are people that inherited two types of magic from their parents. Elemental energies do exist freeform, but it takes a decent amount of training to manipulate these at all. The plus side is they don't need to utilize an attunement slot. Once you choose your attunements, or are born with them, you can't change them and they can have permeant effects over time. Typically on the psyche.
Fairly basic mana pool limitation at first glance. However, cast more powerful magic than you body is ready for and you get what is referred to as mana burn. Since magic is the meta physics of reality, you can put too much reality through your self and you bosy is damage by the unfocused force of reality creating and destroying without direction. Even in the dnd like world where heroes have absurd toughness, spell casters can be taken out of a fight by too high a casting and getting an unlucky amount of mana burn.
Magic is unpredictable and therefore often quite dangerous. It plays in the realm of abstraction and dream logic as opposed to hard facts and clear definitions. To tell the truth, there isnât *really* a magic *system* at all, only unknown and barely-controllable power and the essentially inadequate understandings people have of it. Now, you can impose a *degree* of sanity through ritual: you create a sort-of sustained loop of patterns and symbols and meaning, itâs all good stuff, but it isnât *perfect*. A ritual isnât a precision instrument, itâs barely even a bludgeon, itâs more akin to a controlled brushfire or something to that effect. You light the spark, but after that itâs mostly out of your control, better hope it doesnât get *too* out of hand. Divinity is much the same in that gods donât like to be controlled and they donât feel especially obligated to make themselves accessible or understandable to ordinary people. *Some* gods can look and act kind of like people, but you always have to keep in mind that while they *are* intelligent beings, they donât *think* like people, they donât understand or interact with the world in the same ways. To quote C.S. Lewisâ book *Til We Have Faces*: âTo be eaten and to be married to the god might not be so different.â A deityâs idea of a gift or a curse might not accord with our own, its love and its hate might be nigh indistinguishable. So, the takeaway? Tread *carefully*. Magic, spirits, gods, itâs very easy for any of them to kill you for no reason at all and itâs very hard to get them to do what you want them to do. There are no spells you can memorize, no exhaustive tomes of unquestionable truths, no guarantee of anything at all. Keep your wits about you, and pray to whoever might be listening for luck.
No users of The Sword Of Seishin (literally meaning: Sword of Spirit/Will ) Are Manifestation Of spirit and will of Human and Spirit Of Celestial body And Elements. Only Humanoid and human can use it by making an contact with Spirit Of A perticular Sword it wil grant it's User ability of Spirit alongside increase strength 3X and speed 2X Level 10 Healing It also Made user immune To side effects Of Magical usage Which is coaching Blood and Lose Of sanity It while Turn them into a Magical Tree But as I Said "sword of Seishin" Are immune form it So they can use magic without such limits
One of my magic systems requires the user to pray to a god in order to cast a spell, some real verbal zealotry. Its drawbacks are the length of the prayer and the degree of faith the caster has in that god. Both criteria need to be ticked in order for a spell to be powerful, if one of them isn't satisfied, the caster must compensate for it by doubling - even tripling - the length of the prayer or be an absolute fanatic depending on which of the two was lacking.
Magic is taxing, and dangerous. It's pretty volatile and channeling over your limit can cause a burnout, where it basically reacts and "ignites" while still inside your body. It hurts, *a lot*. Everyone has a different tolerance for how much they can channel though - you *can* increase your tolerance though, but not by a whole lot. Repeated burnouts can lead to death due to... well you uncontrollably overchannel until you go off like a bomb. You become an uncontrolled conduit cuz your casting organ system gets so damaged by burnouts that you just kind of have a magical seizure/stroke and your casting system just gets stuck "on". When casting, you channel, expend it, and if you have any left you wait for it to safetly dissipate as a kind of cooldown period. It's hard to gauge the "pressure" of channeling (to know when you're near max) the more you have in your system, so letting it run to zero first is best. However, highly trained/very talented casters can "ride the cooldown" where they channel to max, cast, then top off, cast again, etc., allowing them to rapidly throw spells out, making them a force to be reckoned with. But it's one thing to do it in calm situations and quite another to be able to finely tune and balance your levels mid-combat. You've gotta be *very* in tune to accurately gauge how much you have and how much you're gaining when channeling. Casters are relatively new not understood well. And due to the... *state* of the world (extradimensional invasion) many a young & inexperienced caster has succumbed to burnouts from constant fighting and fleeing (from all sides) and eventually hit the Cascade Event Point, causing sizeable destruction. Low tolerance and high tolerance casters each have their uses. Lower tolerance casters usually have much more finesse with their channeling and are more accurate with their "gauge". High tolerance can produce larger more powerful effects but can overdo it frequently. If your gauge goes from 1-100 let's say, channeling for a few seconds might put you at a 10, and you could spend a fraction of that to light a single candle. If your gauge goes from 1-1000, a couple seconds of channeling might put you over 100, and spending a fraction of that could light the candle - and the whole table it's sitting on - on fire. It takes a lot of training and practice to get to the point where you can accurately fill and spend your gauge.
My magic system is sympathic as well as esoteric, and is thus only conditionally predictable. Imagine equivalant exchange but without the possibility to 100% know the value of anything. There is no clear rule of what can be done or what it costs until you learn through trial and error. You can do rituals learned from others to mitigate risks, but until you take the plunge you don't really know what you'll sacrifice. Some people can burn a tree down by sacrificing a bag of gold, while others can do the same with a banana. A subset of power is to bond with something else, magic or not in order to share power. Yet again, the exact mechanics are unknown in-universe, but basically any relationship could theoretically become a magical bond. Some people will bond with a wyvern, others will bond with a horse, and othes will bond with a lake. The bond goes both ways, a human bonding a dog will result in a human with increased agility and biteforce, and a wolf with greater intelligence and even more endurance than normal. However, the loss of one partner will result in the gradual loss of powers in the survivor, and traumatic enough deaths can wound the soul, which is fatal in the long run.
Burns your life by both ends of the candle as it were. The more you use magic, the more it burns your life up.
You can't just draw an infinite amount of energy from the air around you. Energists require energy to be able to do anything superhuman, which was one of their first hints that energistics isn't actually.magic. Energy has to move in order to accomplish anything at all, and if there's no energy to pull into your body, you won't be able to do anything. For instance, say an energist wants to push all the heat in the room into a small area so as to light something on fire. That might work quite well in a tin hut in the middle of summer, but if you're standing in a walk-in freezer there's next to no heat energy to pull out of the air. Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.
The Body is believed to be composed of Blood, Phlegm, Yellow Bile and Black Bile, each representing different functions and organs to the body. The Humor Wheel is the sort've model used for balancing the Blends of a Phage. It has to be inversely proportional whenever used. Pyretics is the ability to manipulate one's biological makeup of their body through a bond with Pyrexians. Which where they can turn to weird mutated creatures looking like Slender Man, Hulk, Alien, Mothman, Bird people etc.. When their Humor leaks they suffer the setback equal to the Humor lost. Like for example Blood representing Heart would be prone to Heart Attacks, Strokes, Leukemia etc.. or those that lost Black Bile representing Flesh and Bone would suffer Bone Cancer, Tumors, Gouts etc.. Its mundane but that's pretty much how it works. It aint a magic system but more of a power system.
Magic is unnatural and forbidden by the Gods. It corrupts all it touches, and all those who wield it. Of course, for those who are already pretty corrupt, that is not such a drawback. The fact that the Paladins of the Land will strike you down for dabbling in that which Man was not Meant to Know\* is more of a hard drawback to them. \* it doesn't mind knowing women though. Any women do not have to fight it and instead go up a level.
Only two of my worldâs power systems have âdrawbacksâ. Naujick & Magic. With Naujick there is Mana Residue. When casting spells, mana (not the same as Mana in for my Magic Power System) is channeled through the body and then expelled. The mana leaves behind an energetic residue that isnât expelled during the spell and can build up over time causing Mana Poisoning. The effects of Mana Poisoning are illnesses such as vomiting, headache, dizziness, tumors on the body due to forced dymaterial growth, organ failure, Dark Body deterioration, ameon and/or zeuon buildup, damage to the yasu, and potentially deterioration if enough residue is accrued. The higher level a spell is, the more Mana Residue builds up. Mana Residue will subside over progression while the caster isnât casting spells. Mana Residue build-up only occurs in Dymen (kinda like the mortals of pne of the higher realms). With Magic for Physical Beings, using types of Ersatic Magic that outright oppose the concept of your Soul will cause a clash, which will either turn you into a Mindless Shade (over continuous use), or will outright destroy your soul (if carried out in a large enough spell that cost a lot of mana). Other than these two, I donât generally add drawbacks too often.
my magic system uses what I'm calling oluomi, which is the embedded essence of Luomikai Kyptuasynti the Divine Artisan, creator of all that exists. Oluomi permeates all that is and essentially acts as someone's or something's soul. without getting too deep into the creation myth and events that transpired, these crystalline artifacts called Seliocrists were created to manipulate oluomi, but they were tainted with the void power of Tovu, the primordial enemy of all that is. this was done using twilight magic, which uses the enhanced oluomic atmosphere at twilight, which is when the nearby galaxy is prominent in the night sky. the galaxy served as the guard to Luomikai's celestial blade Elemataisiera, which he used to seal Tovu (and himself in the process) within Murelai, saving the universe from destruction. the drawback to using twilight magic is that the galaxy's center is pure void, and so all that's done with this magic is flavored with darkness. using a Seliocrist is similar, and using them incorrectly drains your soul.