[Brainshower] Magic (SMW)

[Raven Bloodmoon]

[note]For information on the metaphysical nature of spirits, souls, and the self, see Spirits in the Material World[/note]
Whether it be the unwitting scholar plumbing the depths of secret lore in an ancient, mold-encrusted attic amidst the decaying remains of a fog-choked, forgotten hamlet, or a cabal of sorcerers standing at significant points of a design scrawled onto the wooden plants of a storm-tossed ship chanting forbidden incantations of power, or the cheerful, gray-haired grandfather two blocks down mixing up a special tea to abate the sting of a rather nasty insect bite the neighbor's boy incurred while mucking about in the woods, magic maintains an air of mystery, elusion, and danger.

Even the most profound scholars still hold debates over the core nature of magic.  Is it the imposition of one soul on another?  Is it merely a force of will acting on another soul?  Is it something entirely different?  No one is completely certain, but after millennia of trial and error, certain principles have been established.  Magic can only affect things with souls; magic cannot raise the dead; and magic cannot affect the flow of time.  Beyond this, almost anything seems possible.

Over the course of history, three primary branches of magic have formed, and while they seem to produce a lot of similar effects, they do so by different means.  Internal schools of thought regarding magic strive to directly affect souls through the World Spirit.  While they tend to have a reduced range of possible effects (mostly limited to mental and biophysical effects), skilled practitioners can generate these effects reliably with great speed.  Others utilize rituals to summon and convince spirits to do their bidding for them, usually through the offering of bribes and sacrifices.  They tend to take much longer to use may produce any effect, given an appropriate spirit can be contacted and convinced.  Lastly, a semi-magical branch has evolved that combines chemistry with the extraction of magical properties from natural materials (herbal, mineral, or otherwise).  Often termed Alchemy or Herbalism (depending largely upon the nature of the reagents involved), it can produce a dizzying range of effects that often blur the line between magic and science.

Internal casting, mental casting, sorcery, or whatever one wishes to call it, internal magic relies upon the caster's mental strength to seek out and contact his intended target or targets and then inflict his will upon their being.  Practitioners often regard internal magic as the height of magical ability because they require no intermediaries to execute their spells.  They often laud their own mental prowess and the degree to which they have learned to exert their mind to all manner of tasks, including awareness and control of their own body.  Legends tell of such magicians that could stop their own life functions, force their consciousness to leave their body and traverse the world freely, who could perceive the invisible world and never be fooled by lies.  Their magical abilities were no less impressive, as they could not only control their own soul, but also inflict upon others any variety of mental and biophysical changes, from mind control, to mutation, to pain, to miraculous healing.  Some groups even claim to be able to attain insubstantial immortality through the perfection of their magical pursuits, but this is highly disputed.

Of the two external magical fields, spirit invocation is the most widespread.  Spirit invocation, in its many forms, can be reduced down to the ability to attract an appropriate spirit and by some means gain its cooperation in a task the practitioner desires.  Because many spirits can perform tasks humans cannot, they serve as a useful intermediary for such power, but often they demand a price for their services.  Some desire worship, praise, sacrifices, or service; while, others seek to bind the practitioner by pacts.  Still other practitioners attempt to utilize some internal magic to directly contact and compel a spirit, but this is usually done with great risk, as the spirit is not likely to appreciate the imposition. The rituals involved in attracting and bribing spirits tend to be long, elaborate, and very ceremonial in nature.  The ritual may take any length of time and usually exploits known weaknesses of the spirit it is trying to affect, and thus rituals are as varied as the types of spirits in existence.  It is not uncommon for ritual magic to be cloaked in religious or pseudo-religious trappings.

The other of the two external magical fields deals with the manipulation of natural materials.  It is a combination of science and ritual magic that draws on the spirits present in any natural material, be it a gold nugget or milk thistle.  By drawing out the spirit and gaining its aid, bits of materials can often produce magical effects, and by combining those with chemistry and pharmacology, these can be used for any number of applications.  This type of magic has two widely accepted branches known as herbalism and alchemy.  Alchemy typically deals more heavily with chemistry, elemental substances, minerals, metals, gems, and the like; while, herbalism is more focused on pharmacology, biology, and the magic of living things.  Practitioners often have similar mindsets as inventors, philosophers, scientists, or anyone seeking to unravel the mysteries of the world through trial and error and more trial.

As mentioned above, sometimes practitioners do combine disciplines in an attempt to negate the drawbacks of their various methods, but such efforts have yielded little overall change in the thinking of wizards and witches worldwide.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Been giving it more thought and this is where it's headed.  This post supercedes the previous posts on the subject.

Magic comes in two flavors: External Magic and Internal Magic.  External magic utilizes the magic power of others to accomplish tasks, usually through bargaining of some sort.  Internal magic uses the caster's own power to directly affect the souls of others.  This is all specific to human capabilities and veries between species (supernatural creatures may have wildly different natural magical capabilities tahn humans).  Note that humans have natural capabilities; not everyone realizes this or trains in their use.

External Magic uses other entities to perform magical tasks.  These entities, be them spirits or corporeal lifeforms, must be contacted and convinced/compelled to perform the tasks.  Usually this involves complex rituals and ceremonies to get their attention, attract them, or compel their appearance.  After this, the intermediary must be convinced--often through bargaining, sacrifices, pacts, and such--to perform the tasks.  The spirit must then go and do what was agreed on.  Some spirits may be duplicitous, others may be slow, others still may be scatterbrained.  Thus it is not always a reliable form of magic.

Additionally, ceremonies require preparation time and time to perform each ritual.  Preparations may require additional assistants to involve themselves, the use of expensive materials, time-consuming tasks like etching intricate designs into a metal floor, chanting, signing, dancing, meditation, etc.  It also requires extensive knowledge of the nature of spirits, what entices them, what their tendancies are, which ones are reliable, etc.  E.g. if a particular demon is very honor-bound, it will be reliable in its execution of a task, if it agrees to do it.

Because external magic uses any variety of spirits with any variety of magical capabilities, the range of effects produced are staggering.  Literally anything any spirit is capable of is what external magic is capable of, provided the caster can attract and convince an appropriate spirit.

Internal magic uses the caster's own inner power to affect targets directly via the link their souls share in the World Spirit.  The exact nature of this is beyond the scope of this post and has not entirely been determined yet, assuming it ever will be; it's suppose to be mysterious, after all.  Using this sort of magic takes only as long as the caster requires to focus his mind sufficiently.  A novice may take several seconds to a minute while a powerful sorcerer may accomplish this at the speed of thought.  Usually, it takes at least a second or so.  Once this happens, the spell is cast and the effect takes place instantly.  Casting spells thus does require a great deal of concentration and training the mind to focus thus takes quite a lot of practice.  Thus while anyone may be able to use external magic, given appropriate research, only someone with extensive tutelage can perform internal magic.

Additionally, the range of effects of internal magic is much narrower.  Such magic produced by humans only affects mental, emotional, biophysical, metabolic, or life-force aspects of a target.  Thus, it may stop a target's heart, but it cannot change a target's size or cause him to turn to stone or sprout wings, or both.  It is also much more physically draining for the caster, as he must supply all of the energy required for a casting.  No known way to group-cast internal magic is known (it certainly could be possible, but I'm not going there yet).

Lastly, here's a bit on laws governing magic and an initial stratification of magical powers:

Law of Conservation fo Souls:  The total volume of souls in a closed system does not change.

Law of Entropy:  Magical effects that increase entropy are easier to use than those that decrease entropy.

(Caveat:  Perhaps the Second Law of Thermodynamics is why there are lots of souls instead of just one massive blob of a soul?)

Law of Natural Interaction:  Magic itself does not obey the laws of nature, but its effects do.

Not Going There Law:  Magic cannot affect the flow of time, nor can it temporally displace an object.

Generalized tiers of effects, in order, are thus:
1. Detection & Measurement
2. Shaping
3. Transmutation
4. Destruction
5. Creation

If anyone has any comments, questions, or suggestions, they are, as always, welcome.  I am trying to get the typical unknowns under control before I really dealve into the worldbuilding bits.

[LordVreeg]

so would a possession effect be a transmutation? ow about ESP?

Is destruction really destruction, or a changing of form?  CAn thing be absolutley removed from the world?

Also, I appreciate the effort you are putting in here.  Nothing flavors a setting like a magic system designed around that setting.
I like the spirits idea.  Look at the 'numina' in this link, and see if that dovetails at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_ancient_Rome

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Good questions and thanks for the link.  That is very much the idea I am shooting for, actually.  Even if a pebble has a spirit, people would tend to ask favors of the more powerful ones, I'd think.  Thanks for the idea; I'll be reading more about that in the days to come.

ESP in the sense of just reading thoughts or emotions would be Detection & Measurement.  If you are altering emotions or thought patterns Shaping.  Completely changing them would be Transmutation.  Erasing a memory from the Akasha would be Destruction.  Creating a completely new meme within the Akasha as if it had always been widely believed without every getting people to believe it widely (or at all) would be Creation.

Baring this in mind, possession could take one of two forms.  If possession is accomplished by actually forcing the subject's body to do what you want, that would be Shaping.  Completely dominating the subject's mind so that it actually wants to do what you want, regardless of its own nature, would be classified as Transmutation.  Which is more effective probably depends on your purposes.  The latter example would force a subject to admit to wanting to take such actions, if compelled to honesty, for example.  I suppose a third option would be to use Destruction to blast the subject's free will (can that even be targeted?  perhaps just "mind") and then use him like a full-body sock puppet.

Which leads us to...

You made me think about the Destruction question.  The way I see it, there needs to be an ultimate end of the power spectrum, and to truly destroy a subject or to create one from whole cloth would represent that.  At the same time, I'd like to preserve the idea of the world being a closed system that at least pretends to obey the laws of physics (such as Conservation of Energy).  I see two options available:  (1) True destruction and creation are rare and usually even each other out, like the idea of the Higgs field, sort of or (2) If something is destroyed, an equal amount of something (possibly something else) comes into existence to balance out the equation.  Magic on this scale is generally reserved for beings of deific proportions, though.

I would model your typical mortal's or even spirit's powers on transmutation in which the subject is vaporized, reduced to a cloud of dust, etc.  The Law of Entropy should always be maintained with any magic effect.

I'm really trying to build this from the basic concepts up so that it maintains a certain internal continuity, even if it may not appear as such to a person within the setting.  I'd love for you to keep shooting questions at me to force some flesh on this skeleton.  I figure once the underlying principles of the world exist, I can start to work up a civilization or two, and perhaps a couple religions that totally get everything dead wrong but still seem to make sense.

[Red]

H'okay.

So, I think I can grasp it as a whole, but I think the best thing to do is to provide an example of it in action.  

Let's say I wanted to set a log of wood on fire.  What processes are taking place?  I'm guessing from the reading that I could not do this with internal magic?  Just a quick run down on a magical interaction would improve my understanding greatly.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Setting a wooden log on fire....alright.

Firstly, you are correct in assuming you cannot use internal magic.  That's well out of the scope of such a thing.

While I'm sure there are other ways, the most direct method would be to perform whatever rituals necessary to attack a fire spirit, then convince it--probably through sacrifice or promise of services--to go light it on fire for you, and then wait for it to fulfill its part of the bargain.  Depending on the ritual, how long it takes a fire spirit to show up, and how cooperative it is, this process could take ten minutes or ten hours.

[spoiler=Another Option]An alternative and more dicy way of setting that log on fire would be to call a lightning spirit, storm spirit, or cloud spirit and ask it to blast the log with lightning--preferably without soaking it wiht rain, first.  Again, I'd have to attract an approrpiate spirit.  The method of doing this would depend on the particular magic tradition but usually is ceremonial in nature.  After that, I'd have to convince the spirit to hit the log with lightning, pssibly through pormise of service or sacrifices or dancing a jig for it.  Once the bargain is set and the spirit is content with the way things stand, it should execute its half of the deal and hit the log with lightning.  That's when I'd hope the log isn't completely destroyed and some of it catches fire.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=One Last Method]One last possibility before this gets too long (there are more, but I'm not writing A Firestarter's Fantasy Guide to Fun).  I might decide to incorporate some internal magic into the process, although I won't be the one doing the firestartinng myself.  First, I'll make sure I'm rested so I'm ready for what might prove to be an ordeal.  Then I'd perform (or hire someone to perform) the necessary rituals to attract a spirit capable of starting a fire.  I would then use internal magic to affect its mind directly and force it to do my evil bidding of starting a campfire.  Once it has done this, I continue to control it long enough to alter its opinion of me directly (so as not to be set on fire myself) and release the now-friendly little tyke.  Alternatively, I could bury or erase its memory of me, if powerful enough, or I could break its mind and leave it in a catatonic state so it won't bother me.  Or I could use internal magic to slow its metabolism until it just dies.  Or I could just release it and see just how ticked off it is at me for tricking it into showing up and then dominating it.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=I lied; here is one more]Now, there is one other way to set that log on fire I should probably mention.  You can find some dry kindling and put it around the base of the log.  Then find three pieces of wood and a rock - one longer and flexible, one shrter and stout, and one flat; the rock should be relatively flat.  Use yoru shirt or a length of rope or cloth to make a crude bow out of the flexible stick, place the shorter stick in the bow with a single winding of the cloth around it, and hold it against the flat wood with teh rock.  Make sure this is in the kindling.  Now start sawing back and forth with the bow until the kindling smolders into a fire.  Give the log time to catch fire one the kindling is going.  Voila - fire.[/spoiler]

I'm not being too detailed here because different cultures may have different traditions.  Also note that the details of internal magic are as they apply to humans.  I do not currently plan on having other races in the typical dnd sense, and should I add any, they'll have their own internal magic abilities that will likely differ from that of humans.  That is why I would summon a fire spirit - its internal magic is capable of setting things on fire.  A storm spirit is capable of producing lightning with its internal magic.  A demon might actually be permanently aflame, but I'd rather not risk it trying ot give me a farewell hug.

[Red]

Interesting.  It certainly isnt your standard "I cast fireball" magic system/theory/thing.  

You say that the fire spirit would be able to ignite something, the storm spirit able to produce lightning.  

Is there anything humans can do special?  Or maybe not special, but does their internal magic offer anything not available to other spirits?

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Humans excell at mental, biophysical, and metabolic control.  I am appropriating to them traditional ESP, telepathy, and psinoic abilities (less TK) along with a sort of mix of yoga/buddhist meditation-style powers, like extreme metabolic control and such.  Essentially, humans are masters of the mind where a salamander might be a master of fire.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Given what's here, does anyone have any other questions or think that there's more that needs to be covered?

For that matter, are there any other major world-shaping issues that I need to cover before I get to dig into the people and places of this world?  I'm trying to think of some, but coming up dry atm.