azeluslight

[azeluslight]

Love it, very detailed and built into the world (that I have no details of, will be reading it later). Though, it does feel like there could be more forms of magic that can slot into it. I'll drop a few ideas I came up on the spot to kinda "fill in the blanks" for fun:

Water Sorcery, similar to other greater magics, requires users attuned to an element, in this case: water. Most commonly known by the Merfolk in and around Pacifica, a massive kingdom deep under the ocean, or the creatures in the Abyssal Floor that no sane person dare go near unless they have a death wish in a whirlpool or whatever ancient abominations living under there. Most Merfolk specialize in controlling water flow and movement, directing ships and occasionally guiding lost sailors, which is appreciated by sailors of all species, but they do get upset that they basically hold a full chokehold on any large scale excursions over the ocean like a mafia.

Druidic Sorcery, sometimes mixed up with Ritual Magic, Ley Sorcery due to their connection to nature/"ley lines", or Blood Sorcery under certain circumstances as their developments happen pretty much simultaneously, is a greater form of sorcery associated with beings highly connected to living beings, usually plants and animals. Nowadays, this form of sorcery is often connected to either Miracles (of a nature god), or Ritual Magic due to their "rudimentary" nature. Known mostly by the blessed animals living in the deep forests near the Elfolk or any other beings highly connected to the natural environment. Some of the Gods have a liking to this form of sorcery as they are quite close to the world.

I was going to do one for Spirit Sorcery, but I'm not sure how it wouldn't devolve to Abyssal (if we're going the lich route) or be fairly plain and probably be a wizardry (commuting with spirits).

The Methods of Magic (OOC)

There are multiple forms of magic within my world's setting:

Miracles, granted by gods to their faithful upon a favorable sacrifice. Miracles are of the same nature as Ley Sorceries.

Wizardry, a scientific magic learned upon the user by discovering "Universal Truths/Falsehoods/Paradoxes", with Universal Truths being the most stable and least likely to bring about mutation or madness in the wizard. Wizardry is *not* of the same nature as any Sorcery and is not tied to the world or some other being, but rather the fundamental infrastructure of reality itself.

Ley Sorcery, a natural magic attained through birth or artificial means (meditation, being attacked by a spirit or sorcery, being plunged into the Worldblood, etc.). Ley Sorcery comes in a variety of forms and can even imitate other sorceries given enough practice.

Abyssal Sorcery, a greater magic capable only by those attuned to the abyss or those who have bonded with demons. Abyssal Sorcery is the most uncommon form of magic and widely regarded as a horrific myth.

Star Sorcery, a greater magic capable only by those attuned to the Sun, most common amongst the Elfolk. Star Sorcery is feared and hated by nearly all Menfolk for its association with the Elfolk, going so far as to believe that what few human Star Sorcerers are either Elfolk casting illusions or enchantments or the half-spawn of human-elfolk breeding, typically resulting in the death of the Star Sorcerer.

Earth Sorcery, a greater magic capable only by those attuned to earth - more specifically, Dwarves, Ogres, and other denizens of the Deep Hollows or creations of earthen beings like Giants or the World Titan. Some notable methods of Earth Sorcery include the Dwarven art of Stone Speaking, the Earthbone Ogre's Pitch Guts, and the Deep Ones' Milk Song.

Blood Sorcery, a greater magic first learned by the ancient Noethrakish (the many tribes and communities united within the land that would become the Southern Pale, Craggfall Mountains, and Northreach), and then developed into its most extreme forms by the ancient Elfolk before the Red Death spread amongst them. Blood Sorcery is capable by any who have blood, meaning most Sapient life is capable with the exception of Artificials and the Dwarvenkind. It is considered by those who worship the gods to be a repulsive mockery of Ley Magics.

Ritual Magic is another form of magic similar to wizardry in that it is a learned magic that does not require sorcerous capabilities or divine favor. Rituals are often not well-understood by those that cast them, but are a form of rudimentary wizardry that removes the requirement of knowledge of reality in favor of simple items and tools that simulate the formulas used to attain universal power. Many rituals are passed down from one ritual caster to another or learned by the gods, though even the Gods do not usually know the true extent of what power rituals hold.

[azeluslight]

People apparent reblog what they relate to, and depression seems like a pretty popular thing on the Internet in general...

Today I posted 6 excerpts from the novel I'm writing and the only one that is getting reblogged is the depressive suicidal one??? Come on people!

[azeluslight]

This assumes the cult actually survived that long and wasn't just formed, like, 6 hours ago because someone was in way over their head about it and turned an otherwise semi-normal tea-drinking club into a hidden society. Otherwise, yeah.

One unrealistic thing about cults in fiction is how there's usually only one evil cult with a unique name.

If you have The Fellowship of the Bleeding Star you also need a Heralds of the Bleeding Star and The Fellowship of the Heralds of the Bleeding Star and the Bleeding Star Fellowship and Reformed Bleeding Star Fellowship and the Union of Bleeding Star Congregations which includes the previous groups but not the Heralds because they disbanded into the New Heralds and Restoration Heralds in 1987.

[azeluslight]

Sleep deprivation and an empty head make for some crazy ideas next time you check them with a lucid mind. Like, half of the ideas I developed for my world came from those weird semi-lucid moments. I think some people need to go head empty and one all-nighter to get out of writer's block.

(and also write everything down and stored them somewhere)

[azeluslight]

Every once in a while, my brain comes up with things like "a continent shrouded in perpetual fog and mist so thick that you can't see the sun, it just looks like night" that seems like a beautiful set piece for a world, but then the logistics of having people survive there would be so, *so* challenging and hellish, it would make Mad Max look like paradise in comparison.

First of all, if the fog was *that* thick, how would people even breathe? Having a thick dome over the whole continent would make more sense here. Some people could just waive it off as "magic", but even then, visibility would be so awful people would still die from accidentally falling off a cliff or something.

Secondly, crops, lighting, and heating, how would they be handled? Having a location cut off from the sun completely isn't great for growing traditional food. You're mostly going to rely on rare mutations, whatever floated into the region, or edible mushrooms to survive, which is *not great*, to say the least. Same thing with lighting and heating. Granted, fire exists, but good luck finding anything dry enough to ignite in this damp hellscape. It's basically why Britain and Ireland barely have forest fires - humidity too high for dry tinder to be prevalent enough. Also, for lighting specifically, bioluminescent animals and fungus could work, but they would be rare.

Thirdly, who would live in this hellscape? I'm guessing whoever was there when the fog rolled up, explorers, some adventurers in way over their heads, researchers trying to understand the fog, religious zealots, maybe some "colonisers" (since it's technically an isolated location that can be "conquered"), though the sun would never rise here to begin with. I pitched witches and other known creatures and demons of the night (mostly vampires) to live in this region, but having no moonlight does make that kinda difficult as well...

In short, if British weather was always cloudly and sad, this place would be depression incarnate. And having people live here would make for some *awful* stories for sailors and any researchers that tried and mapped the place.

[azeluslight]

And every system seems to just have something drastically off about them when touching any of the physics-based forces. Somehow, gravity is treated as sideways in some, space-time is non-linear in others, and any time someone attempts to do chronoshift battles to quickly settle businesses when time works in two entirely different ways, there's massive rifts where it happens. Took a whole confederation and a lot of rules to restrict people from doing that, and it still happens.

Fantasy setting with magic neatly organised into elemental spheres, except each magic-using culture disagrees with all the others about what the primordial elements are, what their associations and correspondences are, and even how many of them there are. Spells always interact with other spells from the same magic system as though its elemental theory is complete, consistent, and correct, but when spells from two different magic systems come into contact it all goes a bit sideways, often in ways that require flowcharts to explain. Like, you think Ground Type vs. Rock Type is bad? There are five separate, mutually exclusive spheres of magic all called "Fire". The Sylvan Confederacy's "Water" magic explodes on contact with the Empire of the Five Pillars' "Water" magic and nobody knows why.

[azeluslight]

Here's another system that probably has a real media equivalent: myths as the source of magic.

How it works: pretty simple, surprisingly. Myths provide the foundations for magic to manifest into the world, and the collective unconscious makes the myth's form to manifest into the world. Through the interpretation of that myth, different versions of that myth can manifest as different things: weapons, tools, creatures, clothing, magic system, spirits,...

This is where it gets interesting: to create "magic", the world built on this system has a foundational belief that gods exist and have domain on the natural world. To better understand these domains, humans have found new stories and myths, recontexualizing these gods through the ages. At first, they resemble the form of nature: humans, trees, animals, whatever the natural world is made of. Then, they start taking forms closer to humans as they form the first myths. As their stories develop in sophistication and abstraction, so do their powers. At first, a god of life they might control the domain of life, but now they have domain over genetics, evolution, and husbandry as well. Some gods, mostly the ones based on emotions or primal senses, remain relatively unchanged. Then, someone made a new myth: humans can control the domain of gods.

Once everyone believed this, magic popped into the world as people created new ways to control the world. Alchemy, magic circles, glowing rocks, anything. Then, fantasy creatures to make use of the new magic, and new sentient and smart creatues with their own myths develop.

It's a fun idea... until linguistics get involved. Since myths are information by nature, they change and develop as sentient beings develop new ways of communicating. Magic changes subtly, from being very fast and loose to having rules, limitations, etc... Any form of information or mental manipulation becomes the main battleground, while indigenous systems go dead from lack of mythical weight. Sure, the system is still there, but the culture that makes it work is no longer there.

[azeluslight]

I need to mentally dump this overdeveloped idea into the world.

(Trigger warning: Depictions of self-harm, mental illness, spiritualism, magic, and absurdly long post length compared to the average)

Part 1: The basics of the "Third Eye" system

A magic system based on awakening "third eyes" that, instead of granting psychic abilities or divination, grants the user the ability to see/sense more things. This can be split into 2 main categories:

1. Expansion of traditional sensory inputs: the ability to see UV, radio waves, x-rays,... as visible wavelengths (the most basic and low-power example baing seeing the colors that shrimp could and humans couldn't normally)

2. Supernatural add-on senses: seeing spirits, magical energy, timelines, causality, vector directions and forces,... as actual things.

These abilities usually manifest once puberty hits in basically anyone, but can awaken earlier or later in life depending on a variety of conditions. They can also awaken multiple Third Eye abilities, which will cause severe mental strain from the sheer amount of sensory inputs (this is further explained in part 2).

Awakening the Third Eye doesn't immediately grant you any understanding of the ability or what it does, you still need to get it tested, classified, and trained to make sense of what you're seeing. If you don't have the money or access to these things, tough luck I guess...

Also, synesthesia in this world allows the user to remap their Third Eye ability onto different senses, which can allow for very interesting combos (you all can come up with something here).

For the sake of simplicity, and instance

Part 2: How do multiple "Third Eye" abilities work?

To start off with, not anyone can develop multiple "Third Eye" abilities. It's considered a rare genetic mutation, or linked to having multiple genes that correlates to different abilities (there's no clear explanation yet). Most awakened Third Eye abilities happen in puberty, but the second ability usually only awakens under extreme emotional outbursts (anger, sadness, happiness,... any strong emotion counts). Since the brain is not built to handle a massive influx of unknown information, it causes massive amounts of mental strain if one tries to process it, even with training. Due to this, the other Third Eye ability is also forcefully enabled as well, leading to even more mental strain. If you happen to awaken a second Third Eye ability, you're basically cursed with two source of unknown information constantly bombarding your brain 24/7.

To combat this, peoplr have developed the following approaches:

1. "Phantom senses": For people that lost or lack a natural sense, they can use those empty pathways as a route for their Third Eye ability instead. This method stops the pain caused by multiple abilities, but you're still down a regular sense compared to normal people. It also causes massive complications if you somehow restore the missing sense (detailed in part 2.1.)

2. Suppression: Forcefully suppressing a Third Eye ability is never going to be easy or cheap. It's the most humane way for people with full sensory profiles to at least keep a Third Eye though. When a Third Eye ability gets activated, an eye patch or blindfold is put over that eye. Over time, the eye gets weaker and weaker, eventually going dormant and require another awakening moment. It also stops the pain.

3. Self-mutilation: This is a way people try and lessen the pain from it, usually by removing their own eyes or numbing their tongue completely and attempting to do method 1. The pain of the secondary Third Eye ability persists though, since the eye is still fighting against a working sense and the brain can't process it all.

It's a bad time if you managed to awaken two of them, but you get two (or even three) different ways of experiencing the world as the prize (if you survive).

Part 2.1.: What if you restore a person's missing senses?

Scenario 1: They previously had that sense, and that sensory pathway is pre-occupied by a Third Eye ability

- The brain re-establishes the original pathways to the senses.

- The Third Eye fights back but fails, going dormant (see part 2 on suppression).

Scenario 2: They never had that sense before

- Since there's no pathways for it, it is basically like introducing a new sensory input to them

- The brain will attempt to re-use a pathway, targetting the most recently formed one (usually the Third Eye) to develop from.

- Results: a "reversed Third Eye" that grants normal senses instead of enhanced perception.

Part 3: What is the Third Eye used for?

Generally, anyone who works in jobs that require any form of visualization of abstract data gets a pretty nice buff. Having human radars operating military or commercial vehicles is also insanely useful. Honestly, if you can think of a way to use x-ray vision, seeing actual ghosts, or the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, you'll have a good time with this system.