Ahem, alright this has been months if not a year in the making but- introducing the rough magic system concept of
Macrocosmic dream
Long ago, five entities came to our planet, deciding to harvest the life force bless the people of the planet, four of these entities bestowed their powers onto the humans and creatures of earth (working on planet name so we're just calling it earth), splitting small pieces of themselves to spread amongst the world, seeking out living beings who reflect the traits enjoyed by the respective entity.
Time
(forgive the shitty image I cannot draw clocks and this was my prototype icon design)
Time is the flow of this world, with their gift on earth it allows things the time to grow, to advance and evolve
People who are blessed with times gift are often those with an innovative streak, those who risk remaking something and trying something new, or advancing something from the past. You could be an inventor, constantly seeking to create something new, or perhaps a chief who wishes to remake old family dishes for everyone to enjoy, the desire to know something enough to change it and remake it time and time again is a desire time adores seeing in humans. For time, nothing is new, even the wheel existed before it did, and it so loves when humans try anyway to create new things, to appreciate the old and make the new the new old. Currently I have no character examples of time to show how it works power wise, but I have some concepts.
You see, no matter the concept the basis of the powers remains the same, which is the users personal view of said concept. Somebody who fears time is always moving without them can gain the power to stop time, or perhaps they wish to catch up to time slipping through their fingers, and they gain powers of super speed. It all relies on the users personal views on the concept, and if it's more negative or positive can change the outcome too. This can range from "time is as inescapable void that claims and now I have black hole powers" to "oh yeah time is like clocks right? Gear attack. Clock hand sword." It all depends on the blessed's view.
Space
The counterpart to time, whereas time gives you the ability to grow, space gives you the room to. The environment you walk in, the air you breathe, space is all that surrounds you at any given time. This could be the space of your home, or the space of the stars and the black void beyond this planet's reach.
Space adores explorers, the people who want to see what is in the space it has blessed us with, who want to reach across and do something that affects the entire space around them. This can range from people who want to see every corner of the planet and the stars beyond, or people who simply want their presence to be felt across the world, an artist who wants to be spoken about in all corners for their work. Truly, space adores those with lofty dreams, the kind that seem as impossible as touching the stars themselves.
I do have two examples of how space has presented itself in people, the first is an ancient king, his one dream was to rule the entire world. He looked out at the plains and saw land to be owned, space to be conquered, and space bestowed in him a gift for his dream, if space was something to be owned then he would own it all as their king. His crown became the key to his power, retaining anything he placed inside that could help him rule his land, knowledge, advisors, treasures. They say this king never truly died, that his blessing was so great space allowed him to place himself in his crown, and that he rules on through his descendants to this very day.
The second blessed of space is aprello, his dream is lofty but still his own, and that is to make a railway system that covers the entire globe. Others may see it as simple, or insane, but aprello believes in it and refuses to let go. As a gift for his persistence space blessed him. He has the power to construct metal out of nothing, creating his own railway tracks and trains whenever he so pleases and wherever he wishes.
Order
(there's no yellow so time had to be orange and space is red so please excuse the pink it's supposed to be blood red in colour)
Order is life itself, blood and breath, if space and time are where you live and how you grow, then order is why you exist. Order is the blood in your veins, the lungs of a snake, the will to live and continue on of a salmon, life is order, but so is death. Life and death are the endless cycle which order embodies.
Order itself cares not for the humans infighting on its meaning, clawing at eachother throats insisting that it means the law and justice, that it means predator versus prey, nature versus man. In reality, order is all of these things as they all result in the same thing. Perpetuation. There will always be a predator hunting prey, the law will always persecute someone, there will always be man to hunt animal and animal to hunt man. Order prefers those who find themselves aiding in a cycle, this can range from a wealthy CEO undermining their workers, to a worker struggling to make ends meet at a dead end job. Or even to those who want to break the pre-existing cycles via revolution or grand change, because no matter what a new cycle will repeat itself. Order doesn't care how you feel about the cycle, it only cares that you progress it, that you help the snake devour its own tail for all time.
Order is one of the more versatile concepts, with a wide range between its blessed. Some are endowed with nature's blessing, control of plants or animals, others lean more towards humanity with the power of laws. I don't have a character for this concept, so I'll list some concept powers to help you get a better idea of how it works. One person can view order as the law, justice and the scales, their power gives them a hammer to issue out that justice, scales to balance their enemies hearts. Another thinks of life and death, the bell doth toll, and so their power is a bell that rings out death. Another thinks of life, and they can reanimate corpses under their control. Just some examples incase this gets confusing, but if it does I am willing to clarify it more, just let me know!
Chaos
You may think this one is evil, the opposite of life, but these entities exist beyond that. If life is your breath, then chaos is nature's. Chaos makes the winds blow, the tides turn and the plants bloom. If order is all blood filled life and death, then chaos is its counterpart in being nature's life and death.
Chaos adores those who are curious, those who want to understand the world around them, if a tree falls when nobody is around does it make a sound? Chaos loves those who wish to be there to hear it, to confirm. Those who become its blessed often range from scholars and students, to frat boys and people who basically just want to fuck around and find out. That's the basis chaos finds itself attracted to, those who mess with things to learn why, the curious and the reckless youth, the wise elders who want to learn more and the urge to know why.
I do not have a character example for chaos, unfortunately, this one actually caused me enough trouble that I made a Reddit post to get people's views on chaos for power concepts. Which resulted in amazing results as "chaos is mania, so the user can induce widespread mania in people and entities" and "dragon." I am not lying somebody said dragon and I love them, if they were in macrocosmic dream they would get dragon powers and they are the only one having this magic who is doing it right. One way to find out a chaos power for someone is to take whatever they'd get from order and reverse it. Humans often view chaos and order as opposites, and that's ultimately what decides the power. For instance a maid with order could view order as clean and neat, and have powers reflecting that. However if that same maid got chaos's boon then they would instead have the power to spread dirt and grime.
The fifth entity never did bestow their blessing on the earth, instead watching it's offspring of entities bestow theirs and how humans reacted. They say the fifths gift came later, and not as power bestowed but a presence felt. Turning itself into a human form to better experience the world, unfortunately no evidence of such an ancient forebearer exists, so it has been debunked as mere myth. (Don't mind this, this is lore for the traveler/rover equivalent)
Now, as there are only four entities bestowing power, there surely must be four elements only, right?
Evolution.
The hidden, lesser known fifth element. This is for a reason, as this element is no gift from entities beyond this planet's reach, instead, this is Prometheus's gift to mankind. A mad scientist who stole growth and evolution from time itself, turning his prize into a new fifth element he is constantly working to refine. He keeps his work hidden, but if you pay attention you might see the grey colour of evolution from lucky individuals.
Prometheus picks the subjects of his experiment very carefully, he can't go giving evolution to any random person, his work would get shut down for sure. Instead, Prometheus targets those who are desperate, who need power that the entities won't give for whatever reason. Humans should be the ones in control of their fate, no? So he blesses those who seemingly need it the most.
Now, Prometheus's concept is different from the others, it is not just evolution but human evolution, those who gain it have their powers form on their view of humanity. I do have two examples for this, but one is an exception to most of the rules. The first is
Cecilia. Crowned heir to the throne of the space conquering king, she is set to inherit the throne from her father, rarely seen by her large kingdom or her people due to her immense lessons, the crown princess must learn more, learn something new to better the kingdom. She hates It, and one day when sneaking off to learn something she wanted to know for herself, fencing, a man approached her. Blue hair framed his red eyes as he offered her an escape, you can't become spaces queen if you are claimed by another, no? And so she accepted, becoming a blessed of evolution. Cecilia is selfish, her main view of humanity? It is her. Humanity evolved and now she exists. So her power reflects that, she can make copies of herself, and only copies. Her power will grow and learn with her, eventually changing to seeing herself in all of humanity, and humanity in herself, basically instead of thinking of herself she views others as just like herself and therefore as important, letting Cecilia make copies of other things and advancing her power.
And the second holder of evolution, she is a unique case, special in its making as she was not blessed by Prometheus, in fact... He has no idea she even exists. His own work to himself in evolution created a unique copy of himself, exactly as he was once, unfortunately while he resisted the foolish urge to be accepted, to be understood, his copy did not come to the same conclusion and faked his own death. Prometheus moved on to perfect evolution, and Nasir found himself with a blade to his throat and then a wife.
What would you say a baby's idea of humanity is? An infant understands things at their base form, for they know no other way to understand, and when a dying baby is born, red eyes straining to see as she can't breath.. her instincts and small self believes in all her heart that being alive, being human, means surviving. Evolving. Adapting-
And a miracle happens, little baby roya is no longer dying. Red eyes strong as she smiles and coos, meeting the terrified red eyes of a man who understands the mark of evolution scored on her back, what this means for his daughter, for his dream.
And uh. That's macrocosmic dream! At least, a basic explanation of the concepts and the powers you can get. Including the man made fifth one of evolution. To make it easy, order is animal life, chaos is the environment, space is distance and the earth, time is growth and evolution is humanity. Now, just because that's what the concepts are doesn't mean the power is limited by it.
The powers are decided on human views, If a person is convinced order means nature then they're going to get plant powers, even if technically chaos is the plant one. Really chaos is natural disasters, tsunamis and tornados and all that. Order is the cycle of life, blood for blood. The other three seem more obvious I think from previous explanations so they're good.
Roya is special in that she's born with evolution, she's about to die and she gains it from Nasir's own influence of evolution, this doesn't happen with the other concepts because they're more self contained to the person. Prometheus hasn't perfected evolution allowing it to be received genetically, evolution itself is missing the primal ingredient of evolution, aka Prometheus is stumped because he can't progress in his work, but that's just because his missing piece is Roya aka evolution growing through bloodlines and evolving like natural and actual evolution.
There is more to this, like heralds of the concepts and the general idea of the forebearer, who is my idea of the basically MC of the concept, the rover or the traveler like from wuwa and genshin basically. But this should be enough to hopefully give your ocs abilities for each? I tried to make the reasons for getting the concepts vague enough that you can reasonably just pick one and have it fit, but still be detailed enough that you can really dig into it. It's entirely possible for two or more entities to want to bless one person because they fit their favourite kind of person, it's really just a matter of who gets to them first or meta wise whichever power you like best for them.
@rainbowprisimatic @uncreative-cryptid I hope you both don't mind the tags, but I mostly really wanted to make this more public because I very much want to put everyone's ocs into this system, i unfortunately don't have much of a world yet, like cities or kingdoms beside Cecilia's kingdom that is was ruled by that king who had space's blessing, and that's got some sorta rebellion going on, the people want to revolt and Cecilia is secretly helping the revolution leader who she is also sorta gay with but she's also entirely planning to sacrifice them to free herself from the duty of the crown. The crown also has lore but that's not important to the general magic system and so will be yapped about at a later date. If anyone else has read this far into my ramble of a project then feel free to also put your oc into this magic system, which at this point is basically just "this is their view on time and so here are the powers they'd get" or whatever concept you prefer.
Oh also- people can have similar or the same powers here, because it's based on your views it just means if you have the same or similar power to someone that you've got similar or the same views, or opposite ones, like with chaos and order who often get pairs because of human association. To the entities chaos and order match as much as space and time does, they're the same but human views make them slightly different. Okay, it is really late I am tired and making more typos then I want to correct so we're done now, that is the concept based magic system of macrocosmic dream! Don't ask about power match ups like the rock paper scissors thing I have not figured it out yet except that evolution is basically a void element and it doesn't react negatively or positively with anything because of it's unique creation from humans instead of Eldritch entity
