In this text, the author discusses the importance of crafting a compelling fantasy story by considering the world and story it takes place in. They discuss the purpose of magic, its role in the world, and various types of spells, such as dueling, practical, white, dark, and non-verbal. The author also discusses the types, sources, and rules of magic systems, as well as their use to create tone, consistency, and tension.
The author also discusses the challenges of working with incantations in magic spellcasting. They provide a comprehensive guide to writing magic systems in fantasy fiction, including the use of descriptive and vivid language, sensory elements, and energy and emotions in conjuring potent spells.
The author also discusses the use of natural magic as an easy magical system to incorporate into a fantasy story without inventing any spells, rituals, or enchanted items. They provide five tips on how to implement natural magic into your story, with some help from Brandon Sanderson.
In conclusion, the author emphasizes the importance of crafting a compelling fantasy story by considering the world and story it takes place in, the purpose of magic, and the various types of spells and rituals that can be used. By understanding the components, steps, and considerations for creating effective and personalized magic, the author can create a captivating and engaging fantasy experience.
📹 On Writing: hard magic systems in fantasy ( Avatar l Fullmetal Alchemist l Mistborn )
IF YOU WANT TO SEND THINGS TO ME (address): Tim Hickson PO Box 69062 Lincoln, 7608 Canterbury, New Zealand The …
How to write spells in fantasy?
In composing spells, it is advisable to utilise the language of the novel, in accordance with the conceptualisation of magic in the tangible world. Spells are typically composed of ordinary sentences devoid of any distinctive structure. In the event that the narrative is situated within the context of the actual world, it would be advisable to utilise an archaic language that is indigenous to the cultural milieu of the story in order to engender a more fantastical ambience.
How to write a fantasy script?
Starting a fantasy script involves researching the genre, creating compelling characters, avoiding cliches, building a fantasy world, finding realism, and considering the story’s time span. The fantasy genre is often associated with dragons, wizards, and quests to fight evil, but there is more to it than this. It is a fun but challenging genre to bring to life, requiring extensive thought, research, and planning.
Creating convincing stories requires a lot of thought, research, and planning, but it doesn’t need to be overwhelming. By focusing on building a fantasy world, finding realism, and considering the story’s time span, you can create a unique and engaging fantasy script that appeals to your audience.
What are the 7 types of spells?
Casting spells is a crucial skill for all witches and wizards, as it allows them to perform various magic tasks. In the Harry Potter universe, there are seven types of spells: charms, curses, transfigurations, healing spells, jinxes, hexes, and counter-spells. Each type has its own properties and purposes, all able to be cast with a single wand.
A charm, or enchantment, gives an object or organism new properties, such as levitate or affect appearance or emotions. When cast with the intent of lasting within a person or object, the receiver becomes bewitched. Dark charms, or curses, can cause immense pain or even death. Despite their potential, charms can be harmless and even helpful for wizards, making them essential for mastery of magic.
Is 50000 words too short for a fantasy novel?
The typical length of a fantasy novel is between 90, 000 and 120, 000 words.
How to create a fictional magic system?
The seven stages of magic are inspiration, idea generation, alignment, definition, restrictions, testing, and iteration. These stages are essential for creating a magic system. It is important to follow these stages in the order that works best for you, as it may change from system to system. Regardless of the order, ensure you are hitting all seven stages to achieve success. The author has more to discuss about the stages of magic and how to build magic systems, so feel free to comment below if you need more information or if there is something specific you’re struggling with.
Why is fantasy hard to write?
Fantasy writing involves creating a unique world from scratch, often with aspects that are completely or nearly completely different from reality. This is different from speculative fiction genres like science fiction or horror, which often exist in worlds directly based on our world or even located in our world. To create a believable but distinct world, worldbuilding is essential. To simplify fantasy writing, find a balance between writing and worldbuilding.
Writers should focus on both separately, as too much focus on worldbuilding can neglect the story. This approach not only reduces stress but also results in a good story and a distinct world. By focusing on both aspects, fantasy writers can create a more believable and distinct world for their stories.
How do you write realistic magic?
In order to create a work of magical realism, it is first necessary to establish a realistic setting that focuses on everyday life. This can be achieved by using metaphors as a starting point. It is essential to integrate the fantastical elements in a manner that renders them indistinguishable from the ordinary.
What not to do when writing fantasy?
The article outlines 10 mistakes to avoid while writing a fantasy story: 1) ‘Infodumping’ upfront, 2) Not keeping the readers turning the pages, 3) Introducing too many characters at once, 4) Utilizing an overused template, 5) Too many stereotypes or clichés, 6) Terrible dialogue, 7) Lack of narrative logic, 8) Too much action, too little story.
Fantasy is a popular genre due to its appeal to a large audience who enjoys a world of magic and mythical creatures. To avoid a flop in your first fantasy novel or screenplay, avoid these mistakes:
- Infodumping: Some writers feel obligated to explain the setting and principles of their story in the very first chapter, which can make the literature sound like a history lesson. An intricate description of the magical realm won’t interest the reader until they’ve been acquainted with the protagonist and the plot.
What spell beat Voldemort?
Expelliarmus, or the Disarming Charm, is a spell that drives out a weapon, often a wand, and is often seen in duels. Harry, a skilled combatant, was deeply enamored with the spell and used it to defeat Lord Voldemort. Professor Snape, a former follower of Voldemort, taught Harry the spell during Professor Lockhart’s Duelling Club. Despite initially struggling with the Summoning Charm, Harry quickly developed an aptitude for Expelliarmus, which allowed him to use it in challenging situations.
Within months of learning it, Harry used it to retrieve Riddle’s diary from Malfoy and disarm Lockhart. He spent the final hours of the second year practicing Expelliarmus, becoming very good in the process. This relationship between Harry and Expelliarmus has both positive and negative aspects.
What is dark fantasy writing?
The genre of dark fantasy incorporates elements of the supernatural into its narrative, in contrast to the horror genre, which features gory and grotesque creatures lurking in the shadows and disrupting the normal order of life. In dark fantasy, monsters are presented as part of the everyday fabric of life.
How to write magical powers?
This comprehensive guide provides an in-depth examination of the subject of magic, elucidating its various applications, constraints, potential hazards, historical development, and associated cultural practices. It aims to facilitate a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter.
📹 6 Magic System Mistakes New Fantasy Writers Make
⏲️ TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 – Introduction 00:19 – Everything’s a nail 01:39 – No consideration of limits 06:05 – Thinking you need a …
Hard magic systems are perfect for world building. In Avatar the cultures and philosophies of the groups that use each element are informed by that element. The Air Nomads have a strong sense of pacifism, the Water Tribes go with the flow, the Earth Kingdom has sturdy values and the Fire Nation has an expansionist policy like how fire can spread.
I just noticed that eragon’s magic system is basically just computer coding, but for reality. Like, phrasing something wrong causes a ‘bug'(be a shield instead of be shielded), and sometimes a crash(death). It also requires a in depth knowledge of a specific language and syntax is imperative. So basically they’re the most accurate hacking scenes (that are still fun).
I’ll never understand when people lump Harry Potter into hard magic. It seems like each book introduces some wild new ability that was mysteriously never mentioned before. Characters are constantly using new spells that happen to solve their current situation. Literally anything could be added to the story at any time
Don’t forget that a lot of what you said about “Hard Magic” also applies to writing futuristic technology in sci-fi– consistency, limitations and costs are important in making the technology both realistic and believable enough that our belief can maintain suspended. If problems can be solved by technology, there needs to be a limit in some way that the technology can solve or fix issues, or a cost to the fixing. “A robot fixed it” can be just as frustrating to a reader as “a wizard did it”.
imo the most underrated hard magic system is “Nen” in HunterxHunter there are as many different uses for nen as there are users, while still keeping the system fairly balanced. (from wikipedia:) “A Nen user can enter into a Contract (誓約, Seiyaku) where, by pledging to follow certain Limitations (制約, Seiyaku), their abilities are strengthened in relation to how strict they are.” so the strongest abilities come from pledging your own life (or even more) in order to get this power. but the sheer amount of different powers isn’t making balancing those powers worse. instead of just let them bash their heads together, just to let the fighter with the higher level of power win, it’s always about fighting with tactics, using the up-/downsides of the abilities and how you use them to counteract the up-/downsides of the enemies’ abilities.
One thing that personally bothered me much about stories or most fantasy games is: that although characters may be able to learn magic from a variety of schools, most worlds aren’t embedded within the rules of their magic systems. No city, no civilization, no kingdom utilizes magic in its infrastructure, architecture, production, measure of wealth, philosophy – and if this is the rare case, it appears arbitrarily. Like there are some chests locked by ‘magic’, but the concept itself appears to not be thought to an end. It would be authentic to ask the question, how far humans would go with experimenting with magic and building their whole civilization upon it, because that is what people would have been likely done. Magic would be embedded in political systems, ideologies, philosophy and not only in religion. It would fuel people’s whole lifestyle, it would produce a strange breed of mechanical and medieval styles and it would design the way social hierarchy works. That’s what I really enjoyed about Avatar the last Airbender. They put effort into the art of bending, making it a vital element of daily life. Cities, technologies, lifestyles, games, wealth – most of it is build upon bending techniques. Bending an element produces its own sort of culture and ideology, which is depicted for each of the civs: The air benders are nomads, the firebenders have steampower and appear to be imperialists, the earth benders have complex systems and massive structures, they care about stability the most.
Im a starter writer, working on a biiiig project with my siblings and this REALLY helped. The magic system of our story is quite hard actually. The limitation of it is that it uses your Mana, your life force. If you use a bit, you wont feel too different. If you use some more you might get tired. If you use even more your body will suffer physical damage. Maybe cough some blood. Amd if you use even more you might either die or lose the ability to use magic.
There are actually rules and very serious limitations to “magic” in Tolkien’s legendarium. In fact, it’s not even referred to as magic but either as a natural ability of a creature or because of their skill and training. Most of the time, it’s got something to do with the concept of “sub creation.” The Istari are not wizards in the D&D sense; the appellation is only there (and whenever the word is used for any member of the Heren Istarion, it is capitalized) because people in Middle Earth didn’t really know what to call these powerful robed old men. That’s why in the books you don’t really see Gandalf or Saruman flinging fireballs. The closest we ever see or hear of this was Gandalf igniting some pine cones or his story of fighting the Nazgul solo. Even then. the debates were whether these were expressions of his “sphere of influence” as an Istari, or because he was bearer of Narya, the Ring of Fire. Unfortunately, most of the explanations for powers in Middle Earth can only be found in the later Making of Middle Earth books, which includes extensive essays from the Professor and early drafts of his works. If you don’t want to slog through those, there are several discussions on Tolkien’s legendarium and its “magic” system in Quora.
Having just discovered this article over two years after its publication, I know this likely won’t get seen by many people, but I have to give one of my favorite examples of a hard magic system – Nen, in Hunter x Hunter. Limitations, rules and costs are a huge part of how Nen functions, and it has a decent level of predictability. For example, seeing someone’s power being used, you have a good chance of guessing what category of Nen user they fall under, which can then give you insight into what they can or cannot do. Additionally, even though the story is constantly surprising with how powers are used, I never felt as if “A wizard did it”. Everything makes complete sense in hindsight, and you think, “gosh, why didn’t I think of that”. There’s even a way of assigning numerical values to aura usage, reserves and maximum output (if you’re Knuckle). It has an essentially limitless range of possibilities, but those possibilities are bounded by restrictions (eg. conjuring unconditionally unbreakable chains is impossible). It’s such a cool concept because it doesn’t just adhere to the basic tenets of a good hard magic system, it incorporates those rules into the system and story itself – restrictions and rules increase the strength of abilities, there are real consequences of breaking said rules, the extreme cost of an extreme power is tangible, etc. Sorry I’ve rambled on so long, it’s just one of my all times favorite magic systems!
Then there’s the weird Hard Magic systems, like My Hero Academia and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, where the abilities generally have no universal rules, but instead each individual has their own hard set rules. Character A can manipulate time, but only in these specific ways. Character B can alter gravity, but only in these specific ways. The two are playing on totally different rule sets, but each rule set is, well, still a rule set. It’s a strange blend of Hard and Soft magic. The world at large is highly unpredictable, but the characters that the story follows are.
I like that Avatar’s system is like a soft system within a hard system, where it is clearly defined what the elements are and how to use them, but WHAT exactly each character does with them is essentially only limited by knowing the basics of form/movement and having imagination. It means we have a rough idea of how much power someone can access at any time, but we don’t always know how they will use it, and the characters consistently come up with creative ways of shaping and using the elements. Aang can open locks with airbending, Katara can neutralize Azula by luring her to the right spot over a grate of water and submerging/freezing both of them in it, as well as shoot razer thin mirror slices of ice at the Northern tribe master, toph can dig tunnels and create overhangs, ledges, even tents. The limitation is in what they control, but its not limited to just shooting a direct fireball or heaving a rock at someone, they are free to shape the element as they wish once they learn how to manipulate and move it with the martial arts moves. Its a brilliant system that is pretty clearly defined but leaves very open-ended possibilities, especially with the niche variations of styles.
As much as I love everything Brandon Sanderson writes, I think Mistborn has perhaps the greatest magic system in fiction. The combination of limitations, weaknesses, and costs are really incredible. Hearing Brandon’s lectures about it is also fantastic, he really knows how to explain writing like nobody else.
My favorite hard magic system is from a very non-standard place: Thaumcraft 5, the Minecraft mod. Basically, all magic comes from the Void, which lies just outside the universe. Magical energy leaks through in the form of vis, which can be manipulated as energy. Additionally, all matter contains essentia, which is essentially the base concepts which form an object– for example, stone and dirt both contain Terra essentia, whereas iron contains Metallum, as, while they have certain things in common, they’re conceptually very different. As for the four “things to remember”: Predictability: It’s a game system, which means you can’t make it unpredictable. Random effects are only involved in dangerous, highly volatile magic, and that’s more due to it being a bad idea to do mad science, even when science is magic. Limitations: You can’t website or control magic by yourself. You need specific items to do it. You can’t cast a certain spell without a Casting Gauntlet and the focus crystal for that specific spell. Weaknesses and Costs: I bundled these things together because the weaknesses are the cost. For one, if raw essentia leaks into the atmosphere, it will react and create flux, which is bad. Too much flux chokes out the local vis, preventing magic use, and can eventually result in a Flux Rift, a deadly tear in reality, and from there it turns into Taint, which is also a very bad thing. Additionally, the vis in an area requires time to recover after being used, and too much use can result in no more magic there until it regenerates.
Now I know what makes the magical aspect of Once Upon A Time so unsarisfying – because it’s swimming in between. They attempt to explain how the magic works, (e.g. the Dark One has to give tether his soul to the dagger, inner magic comes from strong emotions like anger or wanting to protect someone), but they mostly only explain it when it creates a problem, so it feels very out of the blue. We discover limits, but only so that they can be broken. (Eg how you can resurrect someone, how you cam go back in time, that the Land Without Magic has no magic – so you throw a (somehow still magical) bottle of True Love in a (somehow) magical well and boom, magic for everyone). It does feel cheap.
I personally love soft magic for storytelling. There is something ancient and spiritual about not understanding why things happen the way they do. A story can’t rely on soft magic for resolving issues, but it sure works amazingly as a representation of a chaotic magical approach to nature. Soft magic works amazingly well if it’s mostly used for creating conflict – it comes off as especially deadly and unpredictable.
Hunter x Hunter has to be my favorite hard magic system. It has two parts. Firstly and most importantly, although it is introduced second in the story, each character has their own unique ability, so trying to figure out exactly what your opponent is able to do is a big part of each fight – someone with a strong but well known ability is usually at a disadvantage against someone with a weaker ability but who managed to keep it as an ace up their sleeve. But perhaps most importantly… Each character gets to decide what their own ability is. And it is governed by one simple rule: the stronger limitations you put on your own unique abilities, the stronger they are. If you decide that you can punch really hard, but only on the third day of each month… You can punch REALLY hard on the third day of each month. Like absurdly hard. The other part of the magic system, Nen, is common to anyone, and has about twenty very clearly defined usages. Unlike unique abilities, Nen can be made stronger by training, selective breeding, etc… But because everyone knows about it, unless you have ridiculous amounts of it, it’s probably not a good idea to base your whole fighting style on it. So HxH has a bit of everything – mystery abilities, power creep. It can do pretty much anything it wants, while staying entirely within the pre-established rules. Brilliant stuff that has yielded some incredible results.
What you said about cost not being consistent enough is something I’d called sometimes “the Dragon Ball Z” effect. Because almost every single time Goku and/or Gohan would almost magically earn enough power to defeat the new adversary. When I was a kid I didn’t care too much about that, but now being grown up I can’t help but feel it was always a bit TOO convenient…
For years I’ve had this really cool concept for a magic system that’s like there was this ancient civilization and to use magic you had to draw a word or letter in the air and say it out loud to cast a a spell and since the civilization has died out people have to learn spells from things carved on walls, or books. And then the dragon prince did the exact same flip flapping thing and now it seems like I’m being unoriginal☹️. whatever the dragon prince is cool.
You’ve got Eragon’s magic system wrong. Yes, the energy comes from inside you, and leaves you exhausted, but the magic comes from your education and anantomy, not force of will. At the beginning of the series, Eragon struggles with magic because he’s uneducated. He expends a great deal of energy trying to creates a fire because he ties to use magic to ignite the whole object at once. He later overcomes this by igniting only a small part of the object and letting the rest catch fire naturally. Likewise, he expends magic trying to crush someone’s body with a magical force but later learns that it is more efficient to just pinch off a blood vessel or cause an aneurysm. It’s easier to shatter an object by pushing a small amount of force into a pressure point than rip an object apart. So not only does Eragon have to educate himself about the natural world around him, he has to problem-solve and use magic creatively — and he is then still constrained by his vocabulary and grammar in the Ancient Language. In Eragon, that’s what set the great magicians apart from the novices. It wasn’t that they had more magical endurance — it was that they were clever. Of course, your magical ability is still constrained by your physical abilities, so your casting ability could be expanded, but that was similar to how the human body naturally exercises. An obese and slothful person can conceivably achieve body-builder levels of strength and endurance by working out, but no amount of training is going to allow him to throw boulders.
Late comment, but one “cost” I always really liked was the way Druids are sometimes played in D&D. They can get very powerful abilities from nature, but to maintain it requires a strong connection to it, to the point they end up living like animals and can even get anxious/unwell in a city. I know not everyone plays druids that way, but it seemed pretty cool that in order to use a certain kind of magic, you need to become part of it yourself. I guess like characters who use holy magic must dedicate their lives to that particular god and live by the tenants. It’s a cool way to see how magic, and the cost of magic, can deeply transform who you are as a person.
A thing similar to the “hard magic system” that I’ve always liked, is the “Obeisance” / “Renumeration” system in “Darker than Black”. (契約対価 (Keiyaku Taika) in Japanese, literally meaning “contract compensation”). The way it works in the anime series, is that characters known as “Contractors” have abilities of varying strengths, and, after using their abilities, they must pay some kind of debt for the powers they’ve used, the severity often in direct proportion to their ability. For some it may be excessive drinking, others have to spill their own or someone else’s blood, some grow older, some fall asleep, some must fold origami, etc. Contractors who don’t perform their Renumerations die, so while it isn’t strictly magic, it’s a pretty good example of the systems you are mentioning. I do think that there are ups and downs to either system. If there are too many limits, it can hinder storytelling, and if it’s too vague, it can seem like a get-out-of-jail-free card in any tense situation. Even in the case of FMA they have to break their own imposed rules, but the way they do it comes off as exciting and unexpected, because the viewers have gotten used to the limits. In the stories where soft magic is utilised, I often find that it is coupled with seeing the magic from the perspective of someone who wouldn’t know what they were seeing. In this way, it makes total sense, and would break the narrative by a non-magician suddenly being really knowledgable about magic (without a reasonable backstory to explain why), or the narrator expounding about it, establishing rules, etc.
so, this got me thinking, Eragon fits a hard magic system incredibly well. there are set rules that cannot be ignored. Doing a task with magic takes as much energy as doing the task by hand, if the spell has been cast, it cant be uncast untill the user is dead or the effect is complete, most peoples knowledge of magic is limited to their vocabulary of the magical language, unless its a skilled user that can do it without speech, even then for one to be a good magic user they have to understand the basics of what theyre trying to do. this was a cool thought expirament.
As someone who’s heavily interested in writing my own fantasy novel someday with its own world, this helped me a fair bit. While I’ve generally gotten through a good part of how the world looks, ideas for locations, races significant other things and partly the characters in the story as well as a plot, coming up with an interesting magic system is pretty rough and I’ve been unsure whether to go hard or soft. This article atleast gave me ideas on where to go for a hard one, and that I was perhaps focusing too much to make it cool and unique, but didn’t think the cost and limitations of it. That said, unsure whether it’d be hard or soft, so I’ll be perusal the other article too. Thanks a lot for making it! 😀
This helped a lot! I’m making a power system right now that I call: ’Spirituals’ They are basically glowing orbs that are living in objects, plants, etc. that if they choose you, they can give you magic that varies in plenty of types. (They don’t have mouths, so they speak telepathically) The Spirituals aren’t all powerful. If they are mistreated, they leave you. If they are too tired, your magic temporarily stops. There are plenty more drawbacks to them. “Is this good?”
I really like the Nen system in Hunter x Hunter for that reason. The characters design their abilities themselves, but can only design so many or they forget how to use them properly. It becomes less about how powerful the characters are, and more about how unique powers can be used to take down even the toughest of enemies.
Yeah, I love Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicles, and the Sympathy magic in it is a perfect example of a hard magic system. The laws, limitations, and consequences of sympathy (and to a lesser extent, Naming) makes the actions of Kvothe much more believable. And, of course, much more entertaining.
Fantastic series. Puts it in an easy to understand format. I am a teacher and I have a few students who have been working on their own stories and struggling with how to balance a magic system in it. I showed them these articles and it clicked for them and their stories are looking much more believable now. Thanks.
im so sad that he didnt dive into mistborn. i just love that magic system so much. i can literally picture them running around, jumping, dropping coins to flip up into the misty night sky… i feel like this is such a great story for a movie. is anyone on that? id watch it no matter how good it would turn out!
One of my favorite magic systems are from Warhammer fantasy: source of all magic is Chaos. Basically then chaos energies goes from polar gates, it splits into 8 magic winds. Wizards can see or feel these winds and wave them to create spells. But remmember that all magic comes from Chaos – destructive, corruptive and mutating force. Using all 8 winds leads to quick mutations, insanity and corruption. To use magic one must study in Aldorf’s collages of magic and can only choose one of 8 winds. If you bend more then 1 wind – you get exposed to more pure form of chaos energies and turn to mutant. On other hand High elves are capable to use all 8 winds since they know how to control magic energies in harmony becouse they have stronger minds then humans. So in conclusion – warhammer fantasy magic have heavy price ( exapt if you are high elf ).
No one really seemed to mentioned it here but one of the best things about the magic in the inheritance cycle isn’t just the exhaustion system but also the way magic is websiteed. In the books magic is websiteed through the use of a language and trying to conjure up power. For example someone would website their power and say “Fire” to conjure up fire. This allows a huge amount of variety in the way magic is used and also provides a direct reasoning and correlation between training and strength. Someone who is fluent in the language can do incredible things whereas someone who only knows a few words can only do simple things, even if they’re the equally as strong. For me it’s the best magic system that I’ve seen and is one of the largest parts of why the series is still my absolute favourite even to this day.
I feel like hunter x hunter deserved a nod here as well, easily one of the best explained and most interesting magic systems I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing, with each individual persons access to a hastu affecting their personality and how they think, and keeping mystery and an unknown in fights, keeping people cautious. However, this is balanced by everyone using an identical hard magic system accept for their hatsu, with ten zetsu and Reno being the same for all characters. The different nen categories was great as well, as each category had strict limitations, but seemingly endless possibilities.
That s why I like the magic system of My hero academia : it’s soft enough to explore an infinity of ideas and powers. But each power and how you can get powers are really hard magic. Except One For All and All For One linked power, you receive one power at birth, you stick with it and each power has his own rules, his own weakness that they cant cross. So you can have an emphasis on how each character exploit their powers
I LOVE the way the Avatar series works it. Logically progressing from earth to metal, fire to lightning, water to blood. I also like the way Natuto works. A mix of knowledge, talent, very hard work, theft, gifting, curse, heredity, and costly and sometimes gruesome personal sacrifice are all options, making for interesting differences in the many characters’ paths to become stronger.
I experienced a magic system in the 70’s (I’ve forgotten which) where limitations and costs were intertwined, so you could ignore a limitation if you paid a high enough cost. Things that would be easy to accomplish non magically if you were a little stronger, smarter, or luckier were cheap, the more unlikely an effect was (including levels of impossibility) the higher the cost. IIRC, you could exercise full godlike power for a minute then fall unressurtably dead. Higher skill could increase effect or reduce cost in predictable ways.
One of the most unique hard magic systems I’ve come across is the drafting system in the lightbringer series by Brent Weeks, really good read as is his first series the Night Angel trilogy. Drafters are individuals with the ability to “solidify” different colors or shades of light into a substance called luxin, some drafters are only able to draft a single color (monochromes) while some can draft two three or even more (bichromes and polychromes). Each color of luxin has different properties, red luxin can be gelatinous or a tacky solid and is generally always flammable, green luxin is strong a springy, blue is very hard and brittle and can be made very sharp etc. A drafter must be able to see the color they are drafting, they can’t draft in the dark or if there are no light sources that produce their color. A green drafter will be able to draw in and draft more if they are in a forest for example. To facilitate drafting if there are no direct sources of your color there are spectacles with colored lenses that drafters can wear to help them draft but these are fairly expensive. When one drafts the light “energy” or magic is drawn in through the eyes and is processed by the body in some way, the luxin is generated and can be held under the skin, the drafter then “excretes” the luxin, this can cause tearing of the skin and wounds if the drafter isn’t careful or is inexperienced. Drafters are limited in how much drafting they can do, as a drafter draws in light and produces luxin it stains their irises, the coloration builds up until it completely fills the iris, if a drafter continues drafting they “break the halo” and the luxin spills over into the whites of their eyes and they begin to lose control of themselves as their “color” takes control of them, so a drafter approaching this point must either completely swear off drafting (very hard due to the mental effects that luxin and drafting has) or elect to be ritually killed to prevent them from turning.
I have 6 magic systems in my book Elemental- depends on your connection with the moons, using wrong element can permanently demage you. Book- spells and potions, you need practice, memory and intelligence Tattoo- requires ink and covering your body, if you’re bodies full you can’t gain more and you can’t get rid of it. Genie- asigned at birth and you don’t have much control over it, the people around you do. Shape-shifting- either asigned at birt, which is adjusted to your body, or given to you which makes it painfull. Portal magic- ancient magic that no one truly understands.
My magic system: There are 3 classes of sorcerers based on how they source their magic: 1: jackal: jackals utilize magic or cursed items that they find or steal. Advantage is that its safe to use. Disadvantage is that they’ll have to get creative. For example, they might find a painting that always results in house fires. Could use it as a kind of bomb. Finds a car that kills it’s driver (little bastard spider). Implant it’s parts into someone’s equipment as a form of sabotage. Mage: mages are like typical witches, using rituals, shrines, and chants. Advantage is that its powerful. Disadvantage is that it takes long and needs alot of ingredients depending on the ritual. Worms: worns live in symbiosis with demonic and spiritual parasites which empower and influence them. Advantage: its instant to use. And has little limits. Disadvantage: the spitit in you has it’s own agenda. Very dangerous. There are also 3 classes based on how they use their power: Ruffians: use magic to make their bodies stringer and more bulletproof. Advantage: makes you strong as fuck. Disadvantage: you can’t do much other than punching things and flipping cars with your dick. Hunter: hunters either use magical or cursed tools and weapons or website their magic through normal tools and weapons. Advantage: get to use all kinds of guns, blades, ect. Very versatile. One of the very few ways long range magic can be used. Disadvantage: you’re limited by the weapons you have. And you better not run out of ammo. Wraith: wraiths are like wizards on meth.
Depending on which story I’m working on, the magic system I have in play varies, but I’m primarily in the ‘Hard magic’ camp. In one story I have a system the works on a case by case basis, where it’s based on each character’s personal strengths and weaknesses, each of which manifesting as a unique weapon which differentiate and diversify their roles in unique styles that synergies well with some, but conflict with others. And since everyone has their own style, it comes down to strategy with trying to predict the movements and attacks of opponents since if you know the style, you know their capabilities and their limits. Another I’m working on is much simpler in comparison and is one based entirely on a pool of mana characters are born with. Draining that pool too much causes major health problems and can turn people into mana-hungry ghouls that try to feed off of those with healthy enough pools in which they can satiate their hunger for. The limitations on spells and powers is something I haven’t put a hard cap on yet, but the concept of a permanent and irreversible cost has proven to be a great starting point for how this system will hopefully blossom into.
Harry Potter to me feels like a series that straddles the line between soft and hard magic as it repeatedly displays aspects of both. The rules on what spells a wizard can do aren’t really defined beyond needing a wand, a rules that doesn’t apply to powerful users, and the vague rule that some spells are hard to perform. Patronus is the only spell we really see the characters struggle and train to pull off yet at the same Harry uses the Sectumsempra spell just by saying it and without any practice or knowledge of what it does.
One of my favorite “hard magic” book series is the magic 2.0 series. It redefines magic as programming by setting the story in an alternate universe where everything and everyone is governed by a program, Because the universe is a program The main character finds a file that governs all of reality, so he has to preprogram spells and powers and such. So someone can push someone else really hard with a spell, but that spell has to both be pre programmed and have an active ingredient, such as in one of the first spells being basically just a preprogrammed gust of 200 mph wind.
Ahh I wish you talked about Mistborn more in this article. I has one of the most understandable and interesting magic systems I’ve ever read, but it doesn’t seem like you referenced that one very much. I wish more people would take a slightly more logical approach to explaining their magic systems. And of course, it’s magic, so there will always be a good part of it that just can’t or shouldn’t be 100% fully explained, but it makes it much more engaging to the reader if they could try to anticipate how a character could get out of a situation or solve a problem instead of it just going “oh yeah main character used magic and solved his major issue in 2 seconds” without attempting to explain it.
What people need to understand about magic systems most of the time in anime (specifically Shonen) is that the magic system is primarily used for combat/ fight scenes. Like Bleach, Naruto, HxH, Shaman King, and even FMA uses its “magic” for fight scenes to make fights more unique and engaging. Hell I’d even say stories like Harry Potter, Eragon, The Dresden Files eventually use all their creative magic stuff for fights. All of their spells and casting inevitably gets used for offensive and defensive battles maneuvers and tactics that you see in climax of each book/arc or ending of a series. It’s not a bad thing in anyway, just an observation that these things are used to fight and kill their inevitable enemy.
I liked that zuko didn’t get a power up, his speciality was using his swords and martial arts, he didn’t rely on firebending. All the dragons did was help him find a better way to firebend that wasn’t anger and destructive. He didn’t need to become greater, he just needed to figure out that he was enough.
For a while now, I’ve had the idea of a magic system sort of like alchemy in FMA (though I’ve never watch the anime) that involves materials and magical circles that work like code, each ring of a circle being a line of code. So, if you wanted to summon a golem you would have to start by supplying the materials. The lines of the magical circle would then have to express what you want to be done with the materials. So, if you were to see a large tower covered in runes, that would mean it was covered in commands for a complex spell.
9:39 I have to object. GoT is actually a very hard magic system, it’s just that it’s poorly documented and misunderstood. For example when Dany “gave birth” to her dragons it was really the souls of Viserys, Khal Drogo and her baby going into them. The reason that she didn’t burn was because Mirri Maz Dur messed up her spell and gave Dany protection for the fire instead (in the show it’s just that Dany is born fireproof but this is book specific). Anyways yeah you make a good point nonetheless but I had to say this
To help keep exhaustion in my mind when writing I usually assign a character a number value or a mana pool in my head. And say ability X costs Y amount of stamina to activate, and deduct the points as the fight goes on. So say a continuous shield of some kind would take 5 magic points to keep up every 3-5 mins. plus and additional 2 drain for every hit. It helps to make the reader and me aware of timing in the fight, how much stamina a character has, and just generally helps to balance out the characters.
I came up with a system for shapeshifting. I had a lot of fun coming up with all the ins and outs and odds and ends for it. It’s amazing how simple it is to just keep asking yourself, “But why can’t they just X?” and just making sure the system isn’t too broken to write a story around. First and foremost, while a shifter can assume the appearance of an inanimate object, they must nevertheless remain a biological organism, otherwise they cannot change back. While a person can grow as large as they want, their strength remains unchanged from their original form, so if they grow too large, they might not be able to move under their own weight. They can shift their strength to various limbs (for instance, shifting all their strength to a pair of wings in order to fly) but if that limb is severed, they lose whatever strength was stored inside and have work it back the old fashioned way. A shapeshifter can also use their powers to heal any injury, as long as they can understand it. If they have no real medical knowledge, then most internal wounds would be beyond their ability to heal and would require a doctor. A gimme I’ve provided is that while it is possible to achieve a rough estimation of another person’s for my sight, a true copy cannot be achieved unless physical contact is made beforehand, providing the shapeshifter with a perfect template. While this template can be acquired on accident, it is quickly forgotten unless the shapeshifter does so intentionally. The way a shapeshifter is created is when something happens to break them out of their original form.
The coolest magic system I have ever seen is from a web novel called lord of the mysteries. Instead of using conventions like elements or evocation/abjuration it uses ambiguous concepts like order and disorder. This allows for things like a character being able to do things like set rules in a designated space and those who break it will face a punishment like getting flogged mysteriously or they can distort reality to shift the trajectory of bullets.
Fairy Tail has very interesting magic system. It’s based on ethernano particles that are being absorbed by a mage to his/her magic vessel(first origin). So the power and duration of spells depends on how capacious is mage’s first origin. Greater capacity can be accieved by training. There’s also second origin which can be unlocked by special ritual. Secon origin makes mage more powerful cause now magician can store more ethernano particles in both origins. There’s a third origin which can be used once and after that causes that mage becomes devoid from magic forever. Third origin can be reached only by time ark spell which gives mage all potential ethernano that the mage could ever absorb. Those were costs. Now it’s time for limitations. Magic user can get anti-ethernano cancer in reason of frequent overheating of his first two origins. Not cured on the first stages anti-ethernano cancer causes death. Other limitation is more moral and ideoligical one. If the mage will use very powerfull spell(in every of two known cases it was powerfull black magic spell) in case of life and death and make alive those who should be dead or vice versa, this person whould be cursed by life and death god Ankhseram. This curse is known as Ankhseram’s Anger or Curse of Contradiction. It works that way: As much you appreciate the value of human life or love somebody that much death aura you spread around yoursefl, what causes insrant death of everything in the radius of aura. The only way to control it is rejection of the value of human life.
That’s one of the biggest problems I have with the Harry Potter series looking back. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the books to bits and they shaped me greatly as a teenager, but why, in a world that has Veritaserum are there any criminal cases left unanswered, how can climactic battles be fought when there’s Luck Potion and why oh why does no-one put the tabs on Love Potions when they’re basically roofies, only worse?
What’s really interesting is that there are some power systems that are soft and hard at the same time. For example, both JoJo’s Bizzare Adventure and MHA do this with their Stands and Quirks systems. In a broad sense of all Quirks or Stands, neither really have a limit to what kind of power one can have, but each individual power bestowed by both power systems has their own limits, weaknesses, etc. This leads to each power in both stories being wildly unique and interesting while most of the abilities (looking at you, Star Platinum and D4C) are well-defined.
This really got me thinking about the magic system I’m designing for a book I’m going to write. It’s kind of like The Mortal Instrument series magic, but instead of drawing them on you are born with them and you can’t have more than two and they contradict each other so you can’t use them at the same time. The marks decide which abilities you have and the rest of your power is just martial arts, sword fighting, bow and arrow or knives. And your marks may decide what kind of fighting style you use or the way you fight. The marks are placed on your body according to what they are, example: strength tattoo on your arm. You are also born with a sign in the back of your neck that decides what kind of element you associate with or can use. If you have more ideas or help please comment under this☺️😉
I don’t know if this gets enough likes to be noticed, but I’ll give it a try: One of the best and most realistic hard magic system is the one in Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Series, starting with the first one Eragon, there are specific limitations on the amount of magic he can use, as such he can also die of overuse and get tired from too much use, what’s most excellent is that it still allows headroom for fantastical magic he is not inherently capable of by allowing him to store magic in crystal structures (an ideal choice given the headroom for entropy), drawing on others magic by force (all living creatures) or by their will in sentient beings, with extremely good power scaling that it takes a fuck ton of plant life to actually do anything, additionally the magic is used to it’s fullest potential by elves in metalwork, construction etc. He also is able to use the energy in fighting by reinforcing his physical strength with magic. It’s the best magic system. Additionally the words of the magic as such are said to have very specific rules and must be chanted in the gramarye language which can be learnt by anyone but requires tremendous ability to control so not everyone manages it, thus preventing there being too many wizards. As such he harvests magic from creatures about to die, as he reaches adolescence he uses it to shave efficiently, reinforces weaker objects for use as weapons, places permanent wards to conserve energy as needed, telekinesis effort greatly increases with distance, weight is again limited, mind control is possible but not all powerful and takes ‘effort’ in breaking into minds, wizards fights are proper and totally unlike any other where you have to ‘break in’ to the others mind to prevent both from killing each other in a dying spell cast.
I’ve been thinking lately about how I want to narrow down the laws of a magic system for the story I’m working on, so finding this article series has definitely made you the hero of the day. I’ve watched this article twice and am taking notes, and while I think I’m personally aiming for a harder magic system, the soft magic system article was really interesting, I never realized the distinction between a soft magic system and “a wizard did it” writing. Great stuff here, thank you!
While I was designing some powers as a kid I remember when it came to elemental powers the user isn’t immune to their own powers, if they use to much ice they’ll get frostbite or using fire too much will get the sweaty, exhausted, and sloppy, potentially burning themselves using that one part for fire (IE, shooting fire through the finger but because there’s been so much fire so close to your finger it burns the tip.) I also had one system where they had to do physical movements to use their magic. Similar to Avatar but not martial arts and I came up with it before perusal Avatar. Things like flicking your hand to do a fast lighting attack or kicking into the ground to move the earth.
Man, recently I was starting to create a universe of my own. If I’m going to do an RPG with my friends or make it by my own is something that I didn’t decide yet, so I’m trying to at least stablish the ambient and the power/magic system. This articles are helping me so much! It’s my first time doing anything like this, so I’m actually nervous even though it’s something that nobody knows and I don’t really need to, but I’m having fun doing it. I’m grateful for the existence of a series of articles like this, otherwise I probably was screwed, so thanks!
I suppose it requires extra reading, but the ‘magic’ in the Tolkienverse is fairly well defined as a kind of warping and/or manipulation of the fabric of reality. Pretty much all uses of true magic have some link to one or more of the Ainur, an analogy for Christian angels. Gandalf is one, albeit a lesser Ainur. There is a reason why we never see Gandalf’s true might. The only time he really let loose, which was when he was fighting the Balrog, their battle shattered the peak of a mountain.
I used to think that explaining magic in quasi-scientific terms and constricting it by clear-cut rules basically takes the, well, MAGIC out of it. To a certain degree, I still stand by that. My rule of thumb is: If you want your protagonist(s) to regularly wield magic, it has got to be a relatively “hard”, pseudo-scientific system with reliable, quantifiable rules and powers. If your magic wielders are side characters, keeping magic mysterious (and sparse, if impactful) works well, or even better.
I know it’s easy to give Tolkein a hard time for how butter-soft his magic system was, but it’s worth remembering that before he originated the contemporary fantasy epic, it was common practice to effectively say, “A wizard did it, stop asking questions.” I almost wonder if the rise of systemic magic in fiction is an unconscious response to the many inconsistencies and plot holes of Middle-Earth. I have a theory that it grew out of Dungeons & Dragons. Looking at older authors (or those who write in an old school manner) like Roger Zelazny, Michael Moorcock, and Terry Pratchett, their magic is loosely defined at best and follows more from the folktale tradition Tolkein built his world on. Arguably, so did J. K. Rowling with Harry Potter, for all that it has trappings of a system with its rituals and wands and literal hand-waving. Then there’s someone like Sanderson who, I’ll swear, spends all day thinking of systems and then tries to write a story around them (and obnoxiously allows his Mary Sues to break the system over and over again). I find it fascinating to look at licensed D&D novels because the authors are torn between having a rigidly defined and heavily limited system, especially if they’re writing during AD&D era, and wanting to write something interesting. They wind up having to bend and break rules often because it just doesn’t make things interesting to have a Mage who can cast three weak spells and then he needs a long nap.
One really cool thing about Brandon Sanderson’s magic system is that, at least for his Cosmere-related works (Stormlight, Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker etc) it’s ONE magic system, investiture, with a different flavor of magic unique to each planet. This is due to separate gods, called shards, who preside over these planets and shape the way investiture interacts therein. All of these systems use various “keys” (be it metal in the Mistborn world or Stormlight in the SA world) to essentially pull investiture from the spiritual realm into the physical one, allowing for a variety of magical effects. However, in order to effectively use the keys, you need to have a connection with a shard and it’s massive amount of investiture, usually via a bond with something in the cognitive realm, the realm of the mind (such as a spren). Sometimes, this bond is inherited, like in Mistborn or Warbreaker, and sometimes it is forged, like in Stormlight or Elantris. Yet, despite this commonality, each of his magic systems is incredibly unique and interesting, without breaking the overall mechanics. I have no idea how he keeps it all together.
Oh my gosh, you read Brandon Sanderson? He’s one of my favorite authors of all time! Would you consider making articles about some of his works? As for the question of the day, I’ve actually working on designing my own magic system involving a variation of elemental manipulation (but it’s not just a copy of ALTA, I promise :P), and since I was introduced to Brandon Sanderson, I’ve been trying to find ways to make it more of a hard magic system. Thank you for this article, it was really helpful!
When I make settings for D&D and other fantasy TTRPGs, I usually set up laws of magic similar to the laws of physics or thermodynamics. I love Fullmetal Alchemist for its scientific use of magic, and often include the Law of Equivalent Exchange (or a similar principal) in my worlds. It can easily translate to real-life scientific laws, knowing that matter and energy can’t be created or destroyed. With the historical view of alchemy – things like transmuting lead to gold – I often include the requirement to understand atomic physics so the caster can properly manipulate the protons, neutrons, and electrons in the thing they try to transmute. Nothing is made or lost, just changed. Sometimes magical energy is no different from heat or electricity which the caster can manipulate, and other times I change the atomic structure of the universe to include the equivalent of mana or magicka. My current world has three primal elements – Toros (form), Dynos (energy), and Manos (will). Each is controlled by a godlike being of the same name, and everything has different levels of each element (similar to the Greek elements; fire, water, earth, air, and aether). For example, a stone will be heavily based on solid Toros, with very little Dynos or Manos. Copper, with a high conductivity, will have large amounts of Toros and some Dynos. A pureblood humanoid (they were split into three categories after making deals with the gods) will have almost equal amounts of Toros, Dynos, and Manos. I’m still working on developing how everything works in terms of spellcasting.
I’m going through all three of your articles because I’m not sure where to classify my magic system on the hard–soft spectrum, found this one very helpful though. Parts of it lean a bit hard, but more so because the people using the magic are two of the three protagonists. Magic is hereditary (sort of) through the royal lineage, meaning only the royal family can use it. There are other magical elements, such as magical substances; curses; hereditary blessings that have since diluted into really subtle, barely noticeable, and mostly forgotten about abilities; and magical creatures to the north. These elements of the magic system are very soft and barely explained because, leaning into Brandon Sanderson’s first rule, they aren’t used to solve problems in the story. And then there’s this weird thing involving souls and an inexplicable bitter aftertaste that I haven’t really thought much about and definitely won’t be explaining, and there’s absolutely nothing hard about that, but it’s there as a sort of motif and a hint for the protagonists to use to unravel the mystery.
One of the most interesting magic systems Ive seen came from a book series I’ve been reading recently. The series is called systems of the apocalypse. At first the system of magic seems to be very soft and loose. And from the perspective we get, it very well works like one. But as the characters grow to understand the magic, even to the point of combining it with modern science, it is an incredibly hard system of magic, that includes shortcuts imposed by another much more unknown system. Without the shortcuts though the magic has very strict but simple rules. -Each person has a Myst core and can generate Myst only of the type that matches their core -A person’s Myst core is locked into a single type of Myst once it is formed -Myst functions in 2 forms a ray and a string, as a ray it acts exactly like light, and as a string it has the same properties but is condensed into a filament that can be manipulated. From there it gets more complicated and bends into science, with different types of myst corresponding to different wavelengths, in 4 dimensional space. The series is unconventional, but if this brief explanation interests you I recommend you check it out. It by far has one of the best merging of Magic and Modern Technology I have ever read.
I am actually starting my own book, and I think that my Magic System is going to work like a mana bar. you need a set number of Mana points to actually cast or do anything, otherwise it simply wont work. You cant lift a 300kg boulder with 299 mana points for example. This way, I think that I have cost and some of the limitations down. another thing of my magic system is that anyone can learn any kind of magic, but you grow more susceptible to that magics weakness as you begin to specialize. So, fire mages would be weak to Wind (making a vaccumn) Water (putting the fire out) and Earth (smothering the flame). this gives a weakness to every magic user that others can exploit. Also,if you are a fire mage but want to branch out into to water, you would find it exponentially more difficult, as your magic is used to working a certain way. However if you went into lightning as a sub class, you would find it exponentially easier as its a branch of Fire magic. Thats Limitations. in regards to cost, every spell has a class, and once you learn every spell of that class you are judged, and if found acceptable, are able to go up one class, increasing your mana pool to do bigger and more expensive spells, and giving you incentive to search out spells of your class to class up again. Plot devices are going to be things like relics or scrolls that give you a temporary boost one time, but can only be recharged under a full moon in a mystical cauldron by a magic user that used their magic in a different way, like purifying water by removing all the impurities from it or some such thing.
At this point, the way you described both systems, I’m not sure what magic system the one me and my friend created fits under. I think it might be somewhere in the middle. It’s centered around Elemental Magic similar to Avatar or something like the Dragon prince but there’s either 16, 18 or 20 different types depending on the timeline of the story we’ve got (It’s a span of hundreds of years, different elements get “discovered” to be different from other ones the closer you get to the present timeline) There’s some benefits and limitations to all 20 like you described with Hard systems in this article, but there’s some vagueness to it all too like what you described with Soft systems in your Soft magic article.
One of my favorite short stories Sanderson has written, Perfect State, plays with hard magic systems really well! Not to give away too much, but at one point the magic system goes bad and there is a cost, but no power… so a character then uses that cost AS IF it were a power, something you could only do with a really well-written hard magic system!
Interesting thought regarding environmental awareness: Imagine a world where this principle is dialed up… if not to 11, at least to 9. Something where you need to know really minute details of your environment to truly predict your magical strength there. Basically, a strong home field advantage to magic. How is that world different if mages are discouraged from moving much? And yet on the small scale, routine surveying for changes that could impact the calculations is encouraged? And what about a rival trying to throw off the environment to change the calculations without your noticing? I think those questions require a sweet spot: complex and sensitive enough to create that strong home field advantage, but not so sensitive that it changes so readily that it’s impractical to calculate and keep up to date on in a human time frame.
I’ve designed two hard magic systems so far, with a bit of soft magic accompanying one of them. The first one was for a novel I started writing when I was like 12. I wanted to make the mental aspects matter, and because of plot I needed different aspects of magic I called ‘sciences’ (translated loosely). So the idea was: there are four basic sciences, of Bone (physical fitness and capability), of Blood (intelligence, logic, memory) of Fire (wisdom) and of Clay (the language of magic). Learning magic, one needs a certain level in all of these before they can start learning the main sciences. These are Ice (influence such as making someone feel differently – via understanding and handling emotion), Water (influence such as handling animals – via understanding of the nature of things), Stone (influence such as carving something – through willpower) and Wind (influence such as changing the wind – via imagination). These after one masters these, they can move onto the last science: Iron, the science of self-knowledge and self-control, aligning the other eight sciences and using them with their fullest potential. Where soft magic comes in is the lost science: Light, the force of existence, destruction and creation. It was forgotten in history, but some creatures still hold its power; the Ancients, unique creatures from the dawn of time. They’re all different-looking and possess different inherent abilities, like being ‘not surprising’, essentially making one’s presence and actions natural and expected in anyone’s mind.
I would point out that the technology that is used in sci-fi also requires this predictablity as well its just as frustrating when a ships shield can stop a particular weapon but NOT the impact of a asteroid……and then its later shown that the weapon has more energy involved then the asteroid ever could.
One of my favourite examples of this (I think it would classify as hard) is in Malazan Book of the Fallen, mainly as it not only has limitations and costs and whatnot, but explains it entirely over the course of the series, while not breaking the rules in previous books, and having those rules actually play a major part in the story.
**Spoiler** Oh man, in the books the Lightening Lord barely remembers what his mission was by the time he gives the kiss of life to another dead character. When that character is brought back she recalls the last thing she had a bone to pick with and nothing else. It’s also implied by Beric’s actions he might have lost some of his own humanity along with his memory, so there’s a double dipping on resurrection costs. ☹️
As so many people here have commented give it a try to Hunter x Hunter it has not only one of the most simple yet tightly written well explained magic systems, but it is also one of the best fictional works that exist. I recommend the next article if you want to know how well thought the nen system is: /watch?v=BHcBYkfKzY4
My magic system is about changing objects that already exist. You can alter a trait the object already had, but not give it new ones. For example, you could make a sword incredibly sharp or light, but you couldn’t make it speak or fight for you. The way you do this is by writing or engraving different magical runes on to the object. The better drawn the rune is, the more effective. Also, the more parts an object has, the harder it is to enchant. It would be much harder to alter a watch then a rock. Some runes effect the object directly, while others could change runes already in place. You can string runes together and have the strings interact with eachother. Most of that is for very complex enchantments, but on the highest level, it works kind of like programming, with huge blocks of runes constantly changing based on input from other blocks. Finally, since the writing of the rune takes so long and needs to be so precise, it can’t be done on the spot. It requires time, tools, and a lot of knowledge and skill to enchant something, with even the most simple taking hours and the most complex taking up to a decade. You need steady hands and to have practiced for months to draw a rune well enough for it to have a meaningful effect.
As someone who’s in the middle of writing a magic system, this really helped a lot. Limitations are probably my focus, as it’s all based around the typical well power/mental fortitude of the caster, paralleling it with physical labor, overwork your mind and you might feel dizzy as if you’ve run a mile while out of shape, keep doing it and you could end up fainting. Also the caster needing certain gyms to cast powerful magic, still figuring out the details there. And for the system itself and what is and isn’t allowed, still working on that as well. But yeah, that’s how I’ve ended up doing it. Again, thank you for the article and continue the good work. ^^
I’m currently designing a hard magic system right now. I call it Seidel, it exists everywhere but in order to use it a person has to slowly absorb it into themselves. It works similarly to pressure differentials and I’ve just been fleshing out the details and specifics of what can be done for the last couple weeks.
Inheritance cycle (Eragon) would be a hard magic system, mostly focused on the costs of the magic and only 2ndarily on the limitations (being knowledge of the Ancient Language) ? You can basicly do almost anything there if you have enough energy for it, but it has weary strict rules and consequences (spoiler: like in book 3 where Roran’s friend Carn literarly burns up for expanding too much energy)
Do you have any familiarity with Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality? It’s a fanfiction with a very hard magic system. Harry himself tries to lead a scientific revolution in the wizarding world to discover what the rules are. Many of the rules are mysterious, but it’s clear from the story that rules exist, and magic quite obviously has limitations, but what the rules are and why is not clear in Harry Potter, and the fanfiction brings an amazing approach to it.
“The Belgeriad” is actually a perfect representation of this. The sorcery in this book requires the will to make something happen and the word as a conduit to website the power of the will. But if someone tries to do impossible things, (such as bringing the dead to life) then they could drain their own power and they wouldn’t have enough strength to even keep their heart beating.
So I’m writing a book and I want to know if it’s soft or hard magic. So basically there’s gods and demons and such in it so be wary. When you defeat a god you gain they’re powers, becoming the new god of that. There is a god of everything. The most powerful are the Omega 5 (life, elements, dimension, space and time). The omega gods power’s combine can reset the universe. Now what I want to know is if this is a good enough balance. The main character in the story is the ultimate being (god of everything) but when they use a power they didn’t have originally their soul is ‘eaten’ at (depends on ranking of god/how power). Do you think that’s a good enough balance?
Hard vs soft magic is basically one guy with a tool belt with all its tools visible vs a guy with a toolbox/bag they both can complete the job, but one you can clearly see the tools he has and can reasonably deduce how hes gonna use those tools, the other guy could have power saws and drills but use his fist to nail things, theres no way to really tell until he pulls the tools out of the box/bag
Hunter x Hunter’s Nen system is THE best hard magic system. CHANGE MY MIND It seemed like there were a lot of possibilities with it from the beginning, but once conditions were introduced, literally anything became possible if you were willing to pay the right price… The magic system is sewn masterfully through each ability introduced with the characters. Would recommend.
Hey Tim, great article, I think, but I have not seen it yet. Do you ever wonder just how many different species of dragons we see in hyytd two, and do you ever think we will get to see them again. I know hiccup and the gang will, but will we. I’m personally hoping that all those dragons we see in the second movie will be like nadders, groncles, and nigh ares are now, common. We literally see them everywhere. When, if, we get a series that takes place after httyd 2 I hope we will get to see them everywhere, even the as of yet unnamed ones. (That would make for a great episode. Hiccup and Fishlegs go around classifying lots of new species while some dragons make trouble for the others)
Both shows (ATLA & FMAB) explain the basics of their magic without overwhelming the viewer, it is simple and clear each point you’ve made, the costs, the limitations, the weakness and the predictability, again, without being overwhelming, I have discussed plenty of times about the magic sistem in avatar, like, if aang can bend air, does that mean he could get the air out of someone’s body and choke him? (I know he wouldn’t even if he could) but I think that is the point of it, making worth the time and leave you thinking, without being confusing. I think the word “hard” for describing the type of magic system in fantasy is not quite appropriate, like I said, it’s not overwhelming but it is really explained, you don’t need a new explanation of how the world works because it it’s quite intuitive, every once in a while things are explicitly explained, and hard makes me feel like they hit you with information. Maybe instead of soft and hard it could be deep and shallow? Like deep magic systems because they dive more deep into details whereas shallow just covers the basics, like “Gandalf is a wizard, he does wizard things, he needs a stick to do it” (Don’t get me wrong I really like the hobbit, tho haven’t read or watch lord of the rings)
I might be quite late for this and it might have already been written (not gonna read all 4.8k comments) but the point about Harry Potter is wrong. You don’t learn “late” in the series that they can use magic without wands. Actually one of the first times we are introduced to magic in the series is Harry letting disappear the glass front to the snake enclosure in the Zoo, when Dudley falls into the enclosure. He didn’t even know he was a wizard at that time, being a really young kid. And there’s lots of more occasions, where Harry uses magic without a wand, e.g. where he inflates the fat bitch to fly into the sky. Later on we’re introduced to house elves who don’t need wands. There’s a lot of spellcasting in Harry Potter without the use of wands – from the beginning.
I have been working on a history style fantasy story called Nations for about 3 years now and the magic system is limited by both knowledge and willpower (and sometimes emotions) but also the laws of physics. For example, In the lore, in the ancient times when all the contenants were one super contenant, there was a “dark lord” who after taking control of a elf nation, set out to conquer the world. Eventually near the end of the years long conflict when he found himself being invadeed last alliance style, he used what is called Devilry to summon an army of demons and Fire giants. What this caused was a massive strain on the fabric of reality because of the sheare amount of mater that was in a realm that it technically shouldn’t be and all the small rips in reality cause by the portals they came through, the contenantal drift was sped up to such a degree, it took place over the next few years at the start of the shortly following age.
I know this is 3 years old but imma answer the question anyway. My story’s magic system kinda soft, but with harder elements. It’s primarily used by the antagonists of the story, so it isn’t used to solve problems. As such, the specific powers it can grant are vague. The parts that I’m more specific about are the costs, requirements and risks, as they’re what the protagonists can exploit in order to win fights. The premise of the story is magicians who fight wizards, so the system is designed in a way that lets normal people defeat wizards with ingenuity. Magic requires 3-4 components, depending on the spell. You need a focus, which is a unique object bound to you specifically, a sigil, which websites the energy used for the spell, a magic word, which activates the spell and maybe also an energy source, depending on the strength of the spell. These provide the simplest ways to defeat a wizard. Steal their focus, ruin their sigils or stop them from saying their magic words. If you mess any of these up mid-spell, then the spell is gonna backfire on the wizard. Beyond that, magic also requires certain knowledge of the target. You can’t just fire magic in a direction, you need to be pointing at something specific. In general wizards don’t target people, because people are hard to hit. If you misjudge your target, assume a detail about them that isn’t true, then your spell is likely to backfire. This can be used to the magicians’ advantage. Misdirection, illusion and sleight of hand can be used to trick wizards into targeting things that aren’t really there.
I don’t know if this counts because the series is not completely finished, so the magic might change or grow as we learn more, but the magic system in The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson is a hardish system. The Stormlight Archive has a super awesome magic system and is a really good series(so far).