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One addendum to the Bandron Sanderson's rule about solving conflict with magic: you can have poorly explained magic, as long as it's not used to solve all the problems. Take the Hobbit. Gandalf's magic is never defined as far as limits are concerned, but he doesn't just zap Smaug with magic, he's stuck dealing with some vague threat known only as the Necromancer for most of the latter half of that book. (There are less good examples in Tolkien's writing - the Black Arrow killing Smaug isn't all that well set up....but it is way better than Wizard Cast Fireball, Dragon Dead. And there's the whole Eagles Ex Machina thing, though in fairness to the Hobbit, it's more the fact that Bilbo keeps passing out and missing key events in his account that the Battle of the Five Armies doesn't really get an explained victory.) It can also be used to worsen conflict. Consider the more overt forms of magic in the Song of Ice and Fire series - the White Walkers, Melissandre's witchcraft, the illusions used on Dany. Explanations for those would certainly be nice, but they're not really required, because they're all threats. (At least up to the end of Dance With Dragons - Melissandre's true intent is very ambiguous as yet. And no, I don't know what happens in the show, or really care.)

I love your videos! I didn't think I could stumble over a channel I didn't know with SO much interesting content to catch up with!

Thank you for breaking these things down! I always have to go back to hear a question repeated, but you don't talk super fast and it helps my brain soak up the questions.

Clear take on the subject and good examples! I've literally put my WIP on hold just because I was struggling with my magic system. It's really frustrating... I can't seem to make up my mind.

Great content, glad I discovered this channel

Just come across your Channel Currently Building a World with Multiple Different Magic Systems This is the Type of Content I needed

That was very informative. Thank you very much for showing the many different literary magic systems that can be used and how you broke it down. My magic system is based on sign Attucks, the very real world phenomenon of Sound Vibrations affecting different mediums of matter to create certain patterns. Different frequencies will cause different patterns to emerge in different mediums which will result in different effects on the world or those within it. The different geometric number of points in the polygon do you know what type of special effect is imbued ranging from Elemental to illusionary Magic. There are 10 shapes that can emerge so there are 10 different types of magic each with their own unique way the user will choose to apply it. They were not only require a certain frequency of sound either to be produced by an instrument or their own voice, but they required ether which is produced in solitude but the skill level required to develop and understanding is taught in groups or academies. This leads to practitioners studying together but going off in isolation to obtain more power. Different cultures and languages are used to create similar effects which confound them as they think the power is in the words but it is actually in the tone that is used which leads them to realize how similar each conflicting nation actually is to another. It's not what you say, it's how you say it.

Harry potter has an instance of true source, sacrifice and ritual magic in the form of magic that protects harry from harm particularly from voldimort ( the ritual was the exchange between lily and voldimort punctuated by lily's death (sacrifice) and it's an ancient magic that's built into the world itself ( true source aka love).

probably someone brought it up, but dragon prince, the humans need to slowly destroy their own bodies as well as aquiring components, blood magic is an option, being super powerful but taking a tremendous toll on the caster

Could I get some advice on my magic system? I’ve plotted out a book, but I think the system could lend itself to more than one. Working on writing. (Also thank you being such a great responder to people on the channel! It’s clear you have really good insights.) The system revolves around the use of 3 magic stones (soul stone, heart stone, and touch stone) created by the God of darkness Pala’ and Umtouched Essence (which is basically the blood of shapeshifter like beings) created by the god of Light y’Um. In the beginning of time Pala’ created the shadowfolk, y’Um created the Umtouched, and they collaborated on Happenfolk (essentially humans) together. Touch stone - the only material that Shadowfolk can touch. Their bodies are immortal but their weakness is being unable to touch or be touched by anything. The story takes the protagonist on a journey where she meets cultures that use the magic differently. Urnma (where she’s from) has the most advanced tech built off of a combination of touchstone and Essence through use of rituals. As of now, it’s the most complicated aspect of the magic. It uses symbols (runes) that codify like: “IF LIGHT:(touches):STONE, THEN STRONG:STONE-ATTRACTS-LIGHT” to create a “magical night lamp”. The shadowfolk had centuries to perfect the magic, which is volatile when the runes apply to any organic matter. They focused on magic that would support the Happenfolk who live with them to have easier lives like automatic trolleys, and refrigerant systems. Halimi uses Soul stone and a small drop of essence to transfer a portion of the user’s soul into moving automata. They use this to create armies of golems they need to fend off feral plants encroaching on their mountain homes. Aurnomia uses Mind stone embedded into musical instruments to create “obsession music”. In this the quality of the musician and instrument matter. They use the music to promote work, fend off monsters from the outer planes, and resolve warfare with music. Y’Umtangi use raw Essence drawn from sacred rivers flowing with the blood of their community founders (a band of prehistoric Umtouched). It’s dangerous to imbibe this, but they embrace chaos and ultimately found harmony. It’s affects (when the user doesn’t die) include longevity, increased strength, among other unique transformations. Knapper Isles uses a watered down version of Urnma magic. Instead of innovating, they find runes that work and apply the essence to runes in creative ways. Their use centers on hunting; runes that ward, runes that guide the user to certain things, and runes that have an ongoing or triggered effect like (when facing ground, strong repel) to create a high jump ability. My protagonist (Fla) learns the basics of the rune magic early on, and is chased after a rune user from the Knapper isles. She has an unprecedented magic spoon (unreplicable?) that allows her to stay in her “happenfolk form”, but when she drops it she turns back to her “shadowfolk” form where she can see normally invisible iterations of essence runes. Any suggestions on what kind of applications would help action scenes? Any other help/advice also appreciated!

Age of Ultron also bothered me quite a bit. There was a period of MCU films that were...not the best I guess? Age of Ultron, also Thor: The Dark World and Iron Man 3 to an extant. Some of the new stuff though is pretty good. You mentioned WandaVision and I really enjoyed What If and Spider-Man: No Way Home (though that one does suffer from "Continuity Lockout" as TV Tropes calls it). Though that might just be my interest in multiverse storylines. I think with any franchise that lasts long enough, there will be moments of quality dip and climbs. The Harry Potter books are widely beloved, the Cursed Child is not. Star Trek: The Next Generation / Deep Space Nine are, in a lot of people's opinions, really good. They don't say the same thing about Star Trek: Enterprise. The Star Wars films very wildly in quality (though I do enjoy all of them). That's just the nature of franchises, I think.

Neat video. Sorry I'm 2 years late. Can you explain "expand before making new" more? I wasn't able to follow that part well. Is that like "stay consistent"? Or prefer simplicity? I guess I could look it up from Sanderson if that is his rule. I'm trying to make a system now and am finding it to be too all encompassing. I keep adding layers. But I also don't want to take anything away. I want all things to be possible if there is a logical reason and enough cost.

so I'm working on my magic system and would love some advice. I'm thinking of going with the true source system. I have 2 types. Light and Dark. The main source of the dark magic which I called Darkling magic comes from the Underling which is essentially the devil. There is a subdivisions of the darkling magic. The most powerful are called Ashen Blood Witches, these are the rarest because they get their power from being direct descendants of the original witch who got her power from drinking the blood and eating the flesh of the "devil" himself. The other subdivision of the dark magic is those who surrender their soul but don't partake in his flesh or blood. The reason I have it this way is because I wanted different powers for different people for example necromancers work with the dead. I have also mages called Nightweavers who manipulate dreams turning them into nightmares and are able to conjure a person worst fear into reality. Another subdivision is Illusionists. They can create illusions confusing and causing fear etc. With each division, there are costs. For example, a necromancer slowly dies with each time they use their magic. Their skin slowly rots basically until they become a corpse themselves and die. I was wondering what you think of this type? Another limit i have is a darkling mage cannot heal a lightwing mage and vice versa.

: )

One of my biggest pet peeves with the writing community is when they conflate "out of popular fashion" or "not to their personal taste" with "bad". And Sanderson's Laws have done more to harm impressionable writers than any other writing advice in recent memory.

What's your favorite magic system? Join the conversation in discord! discord.gg/B5jpVSN7nE

You know, I didn't even think about it, but I used the one true source as the basis of 2 magic system for stories im making. In differ t ways but still.

I actually have two types of magic in my own world. Thoogh I admit I'm quite new at this One is holy magic where you pray to the God with a chant and gather his power from the land into your own body and cast a spell the limitations of that system is you can only take in so much of that power and taking in too much at the high end can kill you and at the low end is like being poisoned or getting sick. Because the gods Power is very strong and pure even in small amounts and also the spells don't often work without the chants. This magic is used by humans and is most common in the nobility. It's a one true source based type mixed with a ritual. The other type is blood magic used by the vampires Where the blood they take from their victims fuels their spells and each spell takes a certain amount of victims blood though that amount can be regulated with training. This one is very much sacrifice based mixed with component I suppose The limitation of this power is actually built into the vampires themselves when they run out of blood it becomes much harder to control their more beastial side and they can go into rampages where their blood craving takes over entirely so they don't want to drain themselves empty In such a situation they can't think clearly and it can leave them vulnerable. (ps people tend to groan when they hear vampires in fiction but i included them because i wanted to cause a physical, permanent and fundamental change to my rather innocent hero that really flipped his world upside down.)

So I have this half baked (is this even baked??) magic system that stems from my belief where the hindbrain is a place where the barrier between our reality and the spirit realm (and any other existing realms) is at its weakest, that's why we're able to have prophetic dreams, dreams about subjects that you don't even know (example is my friend dreamt of war when she was still a baby/toddler?) And see spirits. So, the user would have to open the gateway in their hindbrain to be able to use magic. If they use too much, went out of their limits they'll be exposed to the risk of becoming insane at best, and brain dead at worst. Beginners usually have to train first before they're able open their own gateways, but there will be people who could do it at first try. They have to do meditation, building up their confidence and other mental gymnastics before they were able to use magic because it requires focus and absolute trust at their own abilities. Uhhhh..... I also have this thing where the conflict of the story will be about a technology that can absorb magic from the earth instead, and it'll require minimum effort to master it. Downside is, since they're taking from the earth, the environment will become worse and worse the more they use it. The reason why they were able to do magic without harming the environment before this technology existed was because they borrow it from the spirit plane, and it is brimming with infinite magic. But because less and less people use traditional methods of gaining magic and instead use the technology to become more powerful with just a twitch at the wrist, the earth would be slowly dying. The people aren't aware of this ofc, since the company that made it wants them to be ignorant to the actual problem. I think that'll be the conflict of the story, alongside the concerning amount of mind control, children soldiers, revolution, murder, invasions and mass genocide that's also going on in the background.

i don’t think sacrifice magic necessarily has to be evil. plenty of religious groups to this day practice animal sacrifice, and honestly probably have ritual standards that make the animals deaths a lot more humane than most of the meat industry. i don’t think characters would really have much room for criticism unless the story is gonna criticize meat consumption in general (which, hey, is a direction some people might decide to take their story, not sure if i’d enjoy reading it, but i guess it is perfectly valid)

so you didn't understand Age of Ultron

Magic is dangerous, it has unlimited power but can't ever be truely controlled. It always comes with side effects, which often include mutations and transmutations in the body of the caster. It functions by temporarely softening the laws of reality or create a brief magical effect (which can have permanent consequences). Using too much magic, or too powerful magic, reality softens in that locale so much that it can't resolidify. This has lead to reality defying landscapes like the Floating Islands, the Unliving Lands, and even one hole in Reality through which primordial Nothing seeps into the world (the hole was successfully sealed inside the crystalised soul of a dragon). Due to the reality warping effects of magic, as well as the dangers to the casters, magic has been outlawed through all known lands and was replaced with the sciences of Wizardry, Spellcraft and Alchemy.