#mage magic system

[legionofmyth]

Mage: The Ascension by White Wolf Publishing

🌌 Awaken your inner mage with Mage: The Ascension by White Wolf Publishing! ✨ Dive into a world where you shape reality, bend the laws of magic, and uncover ancient mysteries. Embrace your destiny and join the magical struggle! #MageTheAscension #RPG #TabletopGaming #Magic #WorldOfDarkness 🔗 [Link to your overview or article]

Mage: The Ascension by White Wolf Publishing What is it? Mage: The Ascension – 1st Edition Mage: The Ascension 2nd Edition Mage: The Ascension, published by White Wolf Publishing, Inc., is a tabletop role-playing game set in the World of Darkness universe. Players assume the roles of mages, individuals awakened to the hidden truths of reality and capable of wielding powerful magic. Set against a…

[whereserpentswalk]

Wizards are ordered from oldest to youngest. All wizards are nonbinary.

[saltyowlets]

Alt text:

Vivienne is not pro-templar as many would think. She is just using the resources she has in hand in order to work with a system that would rather throw her and the rest of the mages into an inescapable pit. Vivienne's insistence of using the templars is indicative of her awareness of the dangers of magic but she has made it clear that as much as magic serves man, templars serves mages as protectors. She does not trust templars as much as the average mage but knows that there is no easy solution to the weak Veil and the lack of protection the mage rebellion has brought upon other Circle mages. Vivienne does not hate or look down upon other mages as her efforts are clearly to support the mages if she is made Divine. Additionally, her quest was initially supposed to be about collecting phylacteries in order to keep mages safe from templars and mage hunters. She cares about mages enough to chain the templars and if you have a good relationship with her, allow the College to exist.

[randomname3]

Old minecraft magic mods joint lore my beloved

[bethanythebogwitch]

My favorite magic system from a game I haven't actually played is from Mage: the Ascension. It kind of fits as both a hard magic system and a soft magic system at the same time because there are some hard rules, but its mostly very open. To become a mage you have to realize that reality is not what it seems. In MtA, reality is whatever the majority of people believe it is, known as the consensus. The consensus in modern days is pretty uniform everywhere, with small variations based on where you are, but it used to be wildly different based on the cultural beliefs of the local people. A mage is a person who realizes that the consensus isn't true reality and gains to power to act outside of its rules. Any given mage's abilities come from their own personal view of reality, known as their paradigm. A mage's magic can do basically anything, as long as it is accounted for in their paradigm. So a mage who's paradigm includes the classic Aristotelian elements can perform magic based on that, but if their paradigm doesn't include animistic spirits then they can't commune with those spirits even though other mages could based on their own paradigm. The problem with this is that the consensus doesn't like it when you go around breaking its rules and will punish mages by slapping them with an effect called paradox. Paradox can be anything from a spell failing to getting shunted into your own personal pocket universe. Nothing generates paradox like being seen doing magic by sleepers (people who are not mages and still live fully within the consensus). Most mages either only use magic around other mages or, if they need to cast around sleepers, will disguise their magic as a mundane effect. Someone throwing a fireball from their hands will generate major paradox because the consensus is that people can't do that. However if a mage holds a lighter up to a spraycan before casting their fireball, the sleepers can rationalize it as something that exists within the consensus and not as much paradox will be generated.

In the dark ages, magic was part of the consensus and mages could openly rule over the sleepers because everyone believed in magic and therefore magic was part of the consensus. In response to the tyranny of the mages, a group was formed called the League of Reason, who wanted to introduce a new form of magic to the consensus that everyone could use. This form of magic was based on logic and reason and was called science. This led to the ascension war, where the League of reason sought to remove magic and superstition from the consensus and a very loose coalition of mages called the Council of Nine Mystic Traditions want to keep magic in the consensus. And the League of Reason won. A mostly rationalistic, scientific worldview has become the consensus worldwide, forcing the Council into operating underground. The League of Reason has become the Technocracy, a worldwide secret organization ruling the world from the shadows and trying to stamp out magic and any other form of "reality deviants" to keep humanity safe, even if they have to suppress basic human imagination to do so. Notably, the earliest books for the game very much said "Traditions good, Technocracy bad", but later books went for a much more grey approach to the conflict between them, making it clear that both sides really are doing what they think is in humanity's best interest even if their ideas for how to do so are fundamentally incompatible.

What's really interesting is that science and technology really are a form of magic and technocrats are mages, even if the Technocracy would vehemently deny this. Technology is a form of magic that everyone can use because its part of the consensus and science doesn't discover new facts about the world, It creates those facts and applies them to the world. The Technocracy's super-advanced technology creates paradox just as much as magic does because personal anti-gravity suits and mass-produced clones violate the consensus just like throwing around fireballs and conjuring demons does.

Mage: the Ascension is a super fun setting because just about any fantasy or sci-fi trope can exist here. Classic pointy hat and wand wizards can battle cyborgs armed with self-replicating nanotechnology. Anti-authoritarian punks can hack your wallpaper to spy on you because they believe all reality is part of a unified mathematical whole that the internet gives us access to. A group of spacefarers can ride the luminiferous aether to mars only to encounter Aztec shamans who asked the spirits to carry them there thousands of years ago. A powerful mage can create a time loop by convincing their younger self to obtain enlightenment through the power of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Two people can have an argument over whether the guy they just met was an alien from Alpha Centauri or an elf from the Norse nine realms and both of them can be right. Animistic spirit-callers can upload themselves to the internet to combat spirits of malware. And an angry mage might just teleport you into the sun because they believe distance is just an illusion and therefore have the power to make anything go anywhere with a thought. It's a wild ride.

[yzegem]

Sketch of common people from the Twisted Islands. Left to right: llama herder, guild apprentice, fisherman, guild militia man.

The archipellago is mostly made up of rocky atolls, coral reefs and small islands mostly inhabited by shrubs, migratory birds, seals and rodents. (Also llamas introduced by humans).

These poor ecosystems are not suited for large human population yet many people are attracted to the islands because of it's high portal activity (you can read about the magic system here, but I will later do another post about the "mages" of the islands). People from the islands come from many regions of the eastern seaway but mainly belong to the Iliryi seafaring etnithity, and most people speak their language and practice their religion centered around the sea and the portals.

For a long time the islands were not united but each ruled by a "monastic guild" wich investigated portals and lead rituals, divination and offers using them. Certain branches of the guilds opperated as beaurocrats, port tax collecters and managers, defence of the islands and barbers.

The importance of haircuts in the islands stems from their obsession with physical and spiritual cleanliness. People in the islands live in comunal spaces and often travelled between them, so they were very prone to epidemics. Most islands enforce quarantines, daily ritual bathing and frequent body inspections and shaving done by guild officials. This prevents lice from spreading but quickly became a sort of weekly census. Non guild people such as fishermen, divers, some sailors or shepperds shave their hair completely while guild members leave certain locks of hair wich they braid according to their guild branch and status within it.

After the unification of the islands, guilds were standardized into a single secretive entity. Their biggest secret is their use of portals for trade (wich requires years of training and deep knowledge of geometry) and their firearms. While people in the western continent are starting to use iron or bamboo handcannons and bronze mortars, the island's militia have precise matchlocks and powerful breech loading swivel cannons.

Most islands have rocky shores and only one suitable well defended port, so deploying large armies on the islands is basically imposible. These fortified atolls can hold a siege for years while reciving food and suplies from other islands vía portals and even keep making profits by trading.

For an object to be transported between to portals, the portal needs to be opened/primed on the two sides, so many small trading outpost have been set in foreign lands, sometimes willingly by local population and other times by force, wich creates tension with the twisted island's diasphora in other nations.

[diana-s-art]

❗A lot of japping incoming

Ever since changing my MC's magic type, it's been a challenge to create new lore and design.

All from fighting styles, visualization, lifestyle, script and creativity - that dances around the concept of a complex yet dangerous (ancient) rune-magic. Supposedly forbidden practice.

As much as I researched or got inspired by other people's works, it felt right to include symmetry into the role, next to runescribing:

And even though I tend to overcomplicate and perfect things - my research asks an important question:

Based on the Magic System (SD) what type of magic is Rune-Magic?

-ф- Hard Magic System

-б- Soft Magic System

-ж- Hybrid Magic System

And lastly: Do I need to make sense of everything. Or is it enough with just doodles from whatever idea I get.

If this invokes interested I could post the research and scripts on a different platform that explains everything in depth.

[therepudiatedimmortals]

Kvothe is one of thd most like accurately plural characters ive read in a while it's kind of wild and i dont even know if rothfuss knows

[possamble]

tries to write a little creature and gets distracted for two hours analyzing staves from the manga for like. literally two paragraphs in the opening that are just supposed to help set the scene i hate it here

[johnbierce]

Hello kind sir!

I have read your Mage Errant series many a time, and finally decided to try something that I've been wanting to do for a long while now. Write my own book. I was hoping to ask you for some advice on how to build my own magic system, as books like yours and He Who Fights With Monsters have some of the best magic systems I've ever read in any book. I personally like your magic system over any of the close seconds I've seen, honestly just because. Could I ask you how you thought up such a good magic system, and some dangers I might fall into?

Many thanks,

AncienRaven124

Oooh, this is a topic that I can- and have- write thousands of words on. Here's a post I wrote on the topic almost six years ago now on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/cg9az5/the_problem_with_the_hardsoft_magic_scale/ I did a lecture on magic system design for Elegant Literature magazine last year (as well as another on science-inspired worldbuilding), though those are only available for subscribers to the magazine. https://www.elegantliterature.com/authorhq/#all

I am, in fact, planning an entire nonfiction worldbuilding book, with extensive magic system sections- though that's likely a couple years off.

I'm... kinda in the position of having too much to say on the topic, honestly. It's hard to think of what specific advice to give you. My process tends to be deeply research-heavy- Mage Errant's magic system takes inspiration from sources as diverse as geology and chemistry to Foucault's description of medieval "linguistics" in The Order of Things. I build highly complex magic systems that are emergent processes from alternate natural law, and it's a ton of fun for me, but it's hardly the only good way to do it. I think, more important than making a complex or original magic system? Is figuring out how it would impact the setting. Not just fight scenes and epic battles (though those are certainly fun), but everyday infrastructure, logistics, engineering, art, agriculture, even entertainment. One example I used in the Elegant Literature magazine? A magic system that has only one effect- altering the compressibility of water. In real life, even in the ocean depths, water compresses by less than one percent. It's ridiculously resistant to compression. If you could alter that property, you could do some crazy stuff! Create hyper-efficient water hydraulic engines, where the magic makes water compressible on the down-stroke, then deactivates on the up-stroke, gaining a disproportionate quantity of mechanical energy as the water violently decompresses. Or, use the magic to create non-incendiary explosives by filling up a metal tank with far more compressed water than would otherwise fit, and when you release the magic... bang. You could have some absolutely bizarre effects on water sports- I have trouble even fully figuring out how fast a swimmer could go by selectively making water compressible in front of them. Heck, you could probably design a fire-free technological civilization with that magic, with enough engineering and hydrology know-how. (Hence why I'm not using that magic system for anything- I'm a neophyte in engineering, and fluid dynamics is... look, the less said, the better. I'm bad at normal math, let alone math for modeling fluid dynamics.) As long as you keep your magic system consistent, sufficiently comprehensible, and fun, the specifics of the system itself are frankly less important than the applications. It's the creative ways that you use magic in your society, the way it alters culture, language, civilization, history, even art, that really are going to matter the most, far over the properties of the magic itself. And readers don't need to fully understand the magic system- nor do your characters! Having a magic system that is still being researched, that people are still discovering principles of or uses for, is the approach that I prefer and recommend! Just... play fair with it. Don't introduce random new magical principles as a deus ex machina. Foreshadow, build groundwork, etc.

Oh, and above all else? Make sure your magic system serves the story, not vice versa. Whether you're making up the rules as you write, and only fixing them up during editing; or starting with a hyper-strict magic system and forcing yourself to come up with creative solutions to magical problems that follow the rules? Make sure it all serves the story.

[livewiretabletop]

Ok! Redirecting from my plan for todays post (which was on effective horror so let me know if you still want that) because I got inspired by thinking about magic users again.

No matter how you picture your magic users it is important to give credence to the history of the art form. Regardless of how old your world is, take the time to think about the space your magic has inhabited and how it has changed in that time. Be it a form of art, science, or an innate survival tool it had to start somewhere and it has to have changed and grown.

Think about paintings from 100 years ago, then 200 years ago, keep going backwards and when you hit the era of cave paintings youll see that art has changed, abstract, portraiture, brush techniques, brush materials, if there even was a brush. So translating this to magic:

• spell casters used to use their hands instead of staves and to do so is more complicated but still can be done

• sorcerers only learned how to make illusion magic recently and as such there are way less spells in that particular school

• wizards argue about the wand techniques of the 3rd era vs the modern techniques and what is supperior

Now lets look at history. Magic in your world comes from somewhere, but in order for people to wield magic someone (or a thousand someones around the globe with different cultures and beliefs) has to have been the first to realize they have it. In the modern this can mean a lot of things:

• finding ancient scrolls that depict a form of magic that fell out of prevelance

• ancient wizard towers or schools full of tools mages can’t identify yet

• magicians who solely focus on teaching or learning about the first magic user(s) and seeing how much they actually learned

Your setting has a past and the past can be forgotten, either through conquest or the ever corrosive march of time. Write your magic with a story, even if it doesnt get explored in your writing or your ttrpg, those are questions that can have answers and those answers can lead to really interesting problem solving. Magic might be akin to nuclear physics in your world, something so abstract and dense to the average person that they cant even fathom it; but someone has to be Newton and someone has to be Oppenheimer. If magic is an art and its known by its people, what magician is your Picasso and who is your Peeters and how did both of them contribute to the art of magic.

[pluralprompts]

Prompt #1,584

A common piece of advice for young mages is to connect with their magic; to spend some time "getting to know it". Mage A always thought they were pretty average at this, until they discovered one day that it's highly unusual to be able to talk with your magic.

[ninjaaa-go]

the mage exam arc in frieren is the best arc in the show and you cannot change my mind

[yzegem]

Silly doodles about the people from the Twisted Islands.

I added some goofy sketches about operating portals (I will eventually do a full post about it) and two mages:

-Guild chief mage: mages are at the top of the guild's hirearchy and work as portal operators, traders/acountants and ingeneers. They are people that have spent years since childhood under a strict education program and are very knowledgable about geometry, physics and the Island's theology and philosophy. Not everyone can become a chief mage, and only the apprentices with the most potential undergo the full training. Most mages now use gold rods set at specific angles in tripods to prime a portal and then use a launcher to make an item go through it. Launchers are adjustable polley systems that can be set so that the cargo breaks the speed of sound just at the right spot and at the right angle, so that it can travel through the portal.

Hydraulic systems are often used for bigger cargo, wich apply energy in the form of pressure rather than speed.

All chief mages are part of the guild system and loyal to the Twisted Islands' confederation. They keep their secrets and work for the guild's enrichment.

-Empty man cultists. I won't explain their whole religion here as I will do another post about the world's religion but they are basically a death cult wich follows the teachings of the empty man. The empty man was a prophet wich, influenced by another religion of the continent, seeked to revitalize the values of the old religion of the islands and their old way of life. They practice extreme isolation and poverty and try to further investigate portals, as they believe their use should not only be trade. Many of them practice portal mutilation, wich is to put a certain limb into a portal right when it's going to shut close. The cultist I have drawn has portal wounds in both of his arms. These limbs now become "twisted". Most cultists are former guild mages wich want to know even more about the portals. When an arm is "twisted", it can be used to prime or straight up open a portal if the user has the right training and mental control and the arm was twisted in just the right way. Empty man cultists are shunned by the guild system and many live in remote island monasteries. They run the portal trade black market and are contacted by certain clients to transport items without the knowledge and taxation of the twisted island's federation.

[tornioduva]

I made a small TTRPG!

In this game you'll play as either a caster or a fighter, delving with your partner into the caotic lands known as Lavander mists, regions where magic has drowned everything in a scented ocean of fog and clouds.

It still needs polish and tables for encounters, but it should be playable!

[aro-tarot]

I do love when you get just a tiniest bit of story inspiration from something, leave it sitting for awhile, and then when you come back, that thing grows so much into its own world and lore and ends up only reflecting that initial inspiration with a few plot points.