#magic building

[ironwhimsical]

Witches in the modern-day track and record faeries via radios. Mind you, faeries are not winged creatures in my world but rather living radio signals that can alter their surroundings to an unknown extent.

Modern witches, as stated, can record and modify these signals to allow them to control the magic inflicted upon their surroundings. They do this through mixing and distorting the faeries.

Glamour, the magic of faeries, has three specific effects that can occur. It can change the properties of an object, entity, or place. Be it a perceived property such as how familiar you think someone is. Be it a physical property such the density of a rock. Or be it a spacial property such as where a door leads.

Glamour will often swap or copy these properties from things around and apply them to the unprotected items nearby.

These notations track the unwieldy frequencies in the faeries to allow modern witches to calculate, mix, and control artificial faeries.

[acrownofmoonshine]

A magic system I've been on and off about for a while. What do you think?

[alpaca-clouds]

On the Sanderson Worldbuilding Thing

Okay, given I have recently been writing on Worldbuilding a lot, let me talk about the thing I hinted at: why I do think that Sanderson's worldbuilding advice sucks, and why I think that Sanderson has done so much harm to how the west perceives worldbuilding.

And first it needs to be said, that obviously it is not just his fault. Some of it has been issues before he came around to talk about this. Some of it is linked to how western culture perceives itself and its place in the world. But there is this one thing about Sanderson specifically, that I always had a massive issue with.

And that is "Sanderson's First Law of Magics". Like, first of all: ah, gotta love the ego of western men to name things after themselves. Secondly, though... It is bullshit.

Sanderson's First Law says this:

An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

And when I first read this my unfiltered, direct thought was: "Bullshit."

Because here is the thing... there is a bunch of well-known, well-liked stories that people at large enjoy, in which magic is the vaguest of concepts. In fact, a good chunk of anime/manga runs with very, very soft magic systems.

A lot of western fans love to categorize a lot of shonen anime as fairly hard magic, but, like... most of them are not.

Don't get me wrong: there is a bunch of anime/manga that are hard magic. Witch Hat Atelier and Fullmetal Alchemist definitely are overall fairly hard. BUT...

For the most part many, many anime do not rely on the magic system being hard to satisfactory resolve the plot. Instead, well... usually the plot tends to be solves by pathos. And personally I do actually tend to enjoy stories more that resolve plot by pathos.

Sanderson's first law of magic, to me, is directly related to J.J. Abrams' beloathed mystery box. Because both kinda rely on one specific kind of thought in regards to how they construct things: everything has to be this detailed machinations that makes you want to take it all apart. It is the loreification of writing.

And with Abrams, we have by now decided that actually his writing advice fucking sucked, lol. Given that we saw a million times how his mystery boxes kinda collapsed into themselves.

Sanderson's worldbuilding, and especially here his magic building basically assumes that someone engaging with a story wants to mainly engage with a story cognitively. It positions cognitive interaction with a story as the superior way of interacting with narratives. Which is the core issue I take with this. And yes, sometimes it can be very satisfying to have a story where suddenly things fit just into place, and where a battle is won, by people finding a loophole in how the rules of magic are constructed.

But in general, people actually will interact with stories more on an emotional level. And emotionally speaking it is fine to just go: "Power of friendship". That is fine. I swear to you "power of friendship" is fine. It works as a resolution. The last minute powerup because friendship, love and courage is fine. If you write it well emotionally speaking and your reader connects to your characters, people will be okay with the power of friendship saving the day.

Sanderson - like a lot of white cis dude authors - makes the mistake to assume that the way he prefers to engage with narratives is everyone's preferred method of engaging with narratives, and in fact should be the only valid method of engaging with narratives.

But, like... as someone who has grown up in clearly a very different diet of media than him... I am perfectly fine with a well-executed "power of friendship" asspull. I will perfectly fine with "oh, actually the true power was in my heart all along". I am totally fine with some god swooping in last minute and going: "So, now I will teach you the big secret spell that can save the world." If it is emotionally satisfying.

I have fairly recently vented on ATLA and how I dislike the ending. But the issue for me never was the liontutle. The issue for me was that the series did not apply its morals evenly. Ozai was met with more kindness than the Fire Nation soldiers. The liontutle asspull would have been totally acceptable to me - if Aang had cared about preventing deaths before season 3. My issue is that he did not. Everything else? Sure, whatever. My dissatisfaction does not arrive from there being a new form of bending that was introduced like two episodes before the end.

And before someone misconstrues this: I am not saying hard magic is bad. Again: Witch Hat Atelier is about as hard as magic systems can get. Someone managed to write a computer program based on that system. It does not get much harder. And it is currently one of my two favorite media things.

What I am saying is just that the thing Sanderson asserts - that people will not enjoy a story in which the writer does asspulls just putting in a new magic thing that never was even hinted at before - is wrong. There is so many stories out there that are insanely soft magic systems and throw in several not-even-hinted-at-before magic solutions last minute that people enjoy. Usually because those stories are not intent on being engaged with on a largely cognitive level, and instead want to reach their audience on an emotional level. (Well, or they are just going for what is funny and/or cool, which is fine as well.)

And this is why I have such a big bone to pick with Sanderson. Because his thinking in here basically created a scenario where most people think that stories that do not largely try to work on the basis of cognitive and logical engagement are bad. It is a mighty fine mixture of enlightening bullshit and cultural imperialism. With especially the enlightening bullshit being kinda ironic given that from all I know Sanderson is part of the magic underwear cult.

[likeamothtostarlight]

The lands are and have always been corrupted. Some horrible power distorts the environment and warps the wildlife. A vile power that must be combated.

Though corruption is an ambient energy that has existed for as long as humanity has, it has never been clear how it came about. Only how it has continued to manifest. Destructive practices such as overhunting or excessive logging causes corruption to come to being. Corruption can also be found after dire forest fires or during horrible droughts.

Theories abound but the most prevalent is that when an ecosystem fails either artificially or otherwise, the essence of the affected wildlife creates an amalgamation of souls that try to reincarnate but have no vessels to return to. Through forces unknown the soul amalgamate will force itself into inorganic materials or nearby wildlife. Leading to eye-like bulbs to form in stone, or animals with unnatural bone-like protrusions.

These are called entropic blemishes. Marks of spiritual unrest in the world. These strange features can be benign or incredibly destructive to surrounding ecosystems.

Originally humanity devised a magic to deal with this problem. They created mathematical symbols and gave specific offerings to pull in corruption, give it form, fight it, and force it into a vessel.

After sealing away the corruption, one can control it through a similar method to how it was captured. The vessel is carved with symbols, and this allows the user to manipulate the corruption into a physical form, called a beast, to be used to manifest magical effects. Such can be used for labor, combat, or even espionage. The use of magic slowly purifies it.

Eventually one may take it back to the symbol that was carved to capture it and change the physical form of the beast to be purer. Doing this multiple times allows the user to eventually create a being of purity that can fight back corruption simply by existing in the environment.

However, the beast must be taken to areas of corruption to recharge on a semi-regular basis. If not, they will enter a dormant state. It's not particularly hard to enter these areas, but as the world has slowly fought back against corruption, finding corrupted areas can be difficult.

The following are the needed materials for the symbols that summon the corruption and give it form:

Fluid - the living essence in all living things. Be it blood, sap, egg yolk.

Muscle - the sturdy parts of the beast. Exoskeletons, bones, muscle and wood.

Flesh - the elastic parts of living entities; good for magical resistance. Skin, scales, joints, leaves.

Bloom - the materials of survival. Common materials include pollen, honey, fruits and berries.

Wither - the materials of death, after all, nothing can live forever. Alcohol, bacteria, rotting substances like egg yolk or fat.

Vessel - a container for the creature. Must be made of an inorganic material such as stone, ceramic, or metal.

[sleeper-the-guy-from-worm]

The History of the Stated Elements (and the Gods are also here):

It's been a while since my last lore drop but I've finally scrounged up a bit of free time so I thought I'd go over the origin of these pesky little things. Though most of the history isn't too important to the story, the true nature of the elements is.

So for a bit of background info, there are three elements in my setting, Heliosi Energy, Merculeum, and Spectgel, and how much you can do with them is dependent on your ring capacity, a "measurement" of your connection to the elements and elemental virtues that determines roughly where you sit on the ring hierarchy (from one to nine).

Whenever I do [blank/blank/blank], its referring to each of the elements respectively in the energy-merc-gel order.

The elements used to be different. Very different. Long ago the world of Petrichor was excruciantingly simple, with humans living on the main continent of the Crust and slowly spreading out to form basic tribes and the like. It was around this time that something strange occured in the very extremes of these settlements.

The 3 elements were originally boring normal ones. Air, Water, and Earth, and they were terribly, terribly, weak. Limited to only the most insane, ambitious, and heartbroken, these extremes of emotion began seizing the world and warping it. But the people of that era were humanity's infancy, and the elements were shackled by these miniscule feelings.

Advancement was slow, yet the power of the elements grew alongside humanity. The idea of survival bled into the elements and suddenly people were getting crucial surges of power against the threats of nature, or finding that their crops always recieved just enough water. Subconciously people made choices with their elements that always led to one outcome - survival and growth.

An explosion of population, people filled with strength and life, a new age with success that was endless. It was like nothing else that came before, and humanity covered the entirety of the enormous Crust. In this age, the elements were fountains of potential, allowing their best to shape the mountains and split the seas and surf the skies. It was perfect and it went on and on and on...

Or so the official story would say.

There are many in my setting's modern era who find themselves fascinated by history and yet seem incapable of finding any specific details about the Days of Exponentia. Humanity conquered the Crust... and then what?

You see, the Days of Exponentia acquired that name both for the exponential growth of humanity, but also for the first "God". If you'll remember from earlier, the strongest wielders are those with the strongest emotion of a certain type, and for Water, is AMBITION. When driven to the extreme...

"Lunatic after lunatic, tyrant after tyrant, mourner after mourner. Thus came the era of motion. Continents gorged on the sinful. Floods swept through the enemy. Cities were left silent without air to carry the screams. Each slain would only bring another with twice the grief, the ambition, the delusion. Generations could witness the conesquences, feel the scars of the fighting on their bones and yet it would take only one for the cycle to renew. Nothing lasted."

Caloris Palisadei, in a book of history he wrote before becoming the Ninth Mercurial God (and the only Mercurial God important to the story).

These people came to be known as "Gods", either by followers or themselves, becoming fountains of power that helped spread the connection of the elements and by proxy make it stronger. They could move islands with great blows, part the seas in sweeping motions, and move across the skies like comets. And that was precisely the problem. You don't have the strongest delusion/ambition/grief by being a normal person, and the people left to fight back dwindled by the day.

The Elements themselves were starting to feel the hurt now. Less people means less power, but the momentum was hard to stop. The desperation of the people remaining fueled the elements, and the connection twisted, becoming the Stated Elements familliar to all today.

The Elements took a much heavier hand when it came to designing the stated elements, changing the original "feelings" to now be Self-Expression, Self-Control, and Self-Sacrifice as to try and railroad people away from killing eachother. They're better at manipulating Higher-Ringers, and set up the Ring Hierarchy for better control.

Now the elements have lost a lot of their brute strength in favour of variety. It gives people more options that aren't just "kill everyone who opposes you", whilst the Gods with the most power are being cluelessly kept under their metaphorical thumbs. All sunshines and rainbows, right?

If only they knew the fate that would befall them next...

I kinda ran out of steam on this one at the end. Hopefully it doesn't show too much. Death to the paradigm, safe sailing to everyone else.

[infinite-xerath]

Continuing to develop my headcanons for World Runes, I wanted to indulge in just a little bit of powerscaling.

Each World Rune is broken up into five Runeshards. Having a singular Runeshard of any color/alignment can give a person power enough to face down an entire army on their own. It's even possible for someone to absorb a Runeshard into themselves, turning into a living elemental of that alignment. (In my version of the canon, Brand absorbed a Crimson Runeshard and Ivern absorbed a Verdant Runeshard.) Such individuals are sometimes called Shardbearers.

Needless to say, the more Runeshards one has in their possession, the further their power grows. Though it has never been done, acquiring all five shards of a singular color/alignment could give someone power rivaling Celestial beings.

That said, the World Runes are not the only method to achieve god-like power. Spirits and demons, with enough time and energy gathered from mortal hearts, can achieve borderline deific status as well. Spirit-gods can generally be considered stronger than a Shardbearer, though if they take on a mortal host, that person will probably be about on-par with one.

Then of course, there's the Rite of Ascension, which aims to transform mortals into god-warriors. The Ascended are generally about on-par with a Shardbearer in terms of strength, with Xerath and Azir being outliers as they each possess might equivalent to multiple Ascended.

Lastly, you have a few outliers. Viego absorbed the collective negative emotions stored within the Prison Lantern, which gives him might equivalent to a Shardbearer. Rell was imbued with the combined magical energy of several ferromancers, putting her just below a Shardbearer in terms of strength.

There is one notable benefit that Shardbearers have over everyone else, however: a direct connection to the primordial elements that all magic stems from, and thus a greater degree of authority/control. For example, if Viego were to go up against someone wielding a Verdant Runeshard, they may be able to overwrite his control over others' souls, to an extent. Xerath, likewise, would find that an Azure Shardbearer could absorb some of his energy.

Anyways, if I had to give a rough higherarchy, it would go something like this:

Celestials and Runebearers > Spirit Gods > Ascended/Shardbearers/God-hosts ≥ Outliers

[nadreix]

mgh...thnkin of magic

beginner spell

I cast [Conjure Fire Attribute Medium Sphere Attack Method = Thrust = Arrow Force = Detonate On Contact Expanding Wave]

mediocre wizard spell

I cast [Fire Sphere Launch Detonate On Contact Explosive]

Expert Wizard spell

I Cast [Sphere Of Fire]

Master Wizard spell

I Cast [Fireball]

God Of Fire spell

{Fire}

they all do the same thing

but the more experienced the less words you need. technically god of fire level would mean you just...Cast and it does whatever you think of it doing.

i like this idea im gonna use it