Eragon has an interesting magic system i really like. The main magic system uses knowledge as a power as the magic is just a language where every thing you say is true and what happens depends on your imagination, everything costs energy and if u use a spell witch you don't have enough energy for you just straight up die as the spell can't be stopped midway through and will just drain all the energy you have.
What I liked a lot more about that magic system was the way Wizards/Dragonriders fight. Magic is so destructive and so dificult to defend against that if a open fight between two magic users brakes out it is a nearly guaranteed death for both of them. So in reality fights consist of a intense staredown while they try to break trough the others mental defences to stop them from casting anything. Only once somebody has the upperhand, or feels that the other is distracted they actualy attack. It makes for a really interresting dynamic, which I havnt seen elsewhere.
I like how Eragon magic works but despiste how It ended as "I'm the strongest If I know more" and this make the end of the story just an finger snap. Its too "hard magic" in a point that power scaling become a problem to solve more then a stair to climb
I'd argue that Light wasn't changed all that much by the Death Note, but was just given the ability to enact his desires. I mean he's screaming "I am a god" by the end of episode 2
@@CreoSolusIt is interesting because the point is made later when Light loses his memories of the death note how much of a different person he would be without it. While it might not supernaturally twist it's user, the power it offers certainly brings the worst out of them in a way that even the One Ring would envy.
Light is just a case of power corrupting the person, without the death note, he would have grew up a to be a completely normal yet exceptional man, however the sudden acquiring of power altered that fate.
@voice-less I disagree. Even before the note, he viewed himself as a superior person. His ability to make and maintain relationships was all a pretense. He is a sociopath, and lying comes as easily as breathing, while he values himself higher than others at the same time he cannot help but put himself in danger and accept Ls challenge and in the process revealing himself. He wounds everyone around him and even himself. A deeply flawed person to be sure. Though everyone deserves a chance, Light is someone I would not give one. He has lost his humanity after and "ascended to godhood" Edit: I feel I was not hard enough. Near the end, he was a rabid, cornered animal that needed to be put down.
@@TheGoldenPhoenix-nm8qe friendship as in what way? I’m designing a magic system that’s specified for duo relationships centered around the concept of keys and locks I would like to hear your thoughts peaked my interest out of all the comments by far plus I love adventure times magic system 😂
You can't just stop with a mythology; exploring the ecological history of magic on a world will bring new understanding of the world as you develop it. It's *very* time consuming, however, but really worthwhile.
Ive been recently reading the Manga Witch Hat Atelier, which has been a really enjoyable magic system to follow. Magic is casted on ink and paper and follows a really hard magic system. Beautiful art as well.
I love this manga, the magic is so in-depth it feels kinda like its own drawn programming language for spells , there are a lot of interesting and clever ways it's used throughout the series. Also I think you might like Magus of the library it has a similar vibe.
For constructed magic and how it affects society there's The Wheel of Time series (the books by Robert Jordan): magic is done by channeling an extra dimensional source of magic power and by weaving the five elemental aspects of that power (earth, air, fire, water and spirit) to create various effects, it's not almighty and has a lot of limits. For the society influence, that's the basis of the series: 3000 years before there was a cataclysm due to the fact that the male counterpart of magic was tainted by a god of destruction and all male channelers are destined to become more and more insane; before that cataclysm the society was like a futuristic society with magic everywhere. For military use it's complicated: the female channelers refrain from using magic for military purpose first because they wanted to regain the trust of common people and after it almost became a tradition (but they still lacked thr trust). But when the time comes to go to war: totally devastating and it's also used in conjunction with new technologies to gain tactical advantage. There's no mana but normal fatigue: a mage becomes more and more tired the more magic (or more powerful magic) is used, then there are different level of power that are an innate charatersic of each person (and that allows to use more or less powerful magics). Another example of magic for military purposes it's Raymond Feist books: do the exact opposite. 😂 It has the most moronic explanation I ever read for why mages aren't used in conflicts: "a mage uses a spell and the enemy mage uses a counterspell and responds, so the first mage uses a counterspell, too and so on, until the cavalry arrives and kills the mages" (seriously) and everyone accepted as the most insightful thing was ever said, no one realised that that explanation could be applied for basically EVERITHING in war but it deosn't prevent from not fighting only with fists. I mean, it's not that we dont' use jets because there's anti-aircraft weapons and don't use tanks because there's anti-tank weapons: it's always a race on who is better at what to gain an edge (in non-asymmetric wars, at lest)...
I've wanted to pick up the wheel of time just haven't had the time. Thanks for taking the time to write a well presented recommendation. Really Appreciate it. Im really hoping to incorporate the military properly into my story.
I love worldbuilding, and magic systems are a thing I spent a LOT of time on. I like these worldbuilding videos. Gives inspiration and help on understanding some stuff. Eager to see the next one !
My favourite magic system is in the chinese fantasy series Lord of mysteries, I could go on forever in all the ways it’s just awesome but I’ll keep it short. You drink potion, you gain that potions power, there are 20 something different starter potions that all gives different powers, each starter potions have their own progression tree where you start as a sequence 9 all the way up to 0. To be able to get the next potion you need to act in accordance to said potions “intent/powers/will” for example if you start with the Seer potion you need to act as a Seer, that can be very abstract or literal. You can’t transition between potion lines so the first potion is very important. Ingredients are also a factor for progression. Then there are all the underlying things like gods/churches/cults, the potions and the magical world as a whole is hidden from the average person because the world is set in a lovecraftian cathulu horror world where knowledge is actively dangerous. Drinking a potion symbolises abandoning the mundane and becoming a part of the horror, a “beyonder” (someone who’s drunk a potion) fights a life long battle with madness and becomes horrifying monsters should they lose control and this gets way WAY worse the further you progress, which correlates nicely with the stronger you are the more you suffer the risk of going completely mad. Whoops this got long, uhhh LoM is a long web serial that I personally love but it isn’t for everyone, especially those who like it more faster paced.
my top favorite form of spell casting is woven/manalines kinds, the ones with circles with texts/symbols inside them as the spell being built and given instructions.
I’m making a magic system and world right now, and you just gave me many many ideas; your characters and especially your branch analogy are super cool (even if that isn’t the direction I’m going) and I’m super excited to see what you do next!!!
The classification of magic sistems into hard and soft had a lasting wound in the type of magic system I made, glad to see the breaking of it^^ The fact that magic systems can impact the personalities of the wielder wasn't something I thought of before, so that was an eye-opener too! Great video as always^^
Classifications are but afterthoughts. Not like people couldn't write magic before. I heard of hard soft before I actually write. But as soon as I do I realise it is just dumbed down doorstep to help babies getting in the house.
If you want a "Magic" systeme that as an impact on the users personalities, then i recommend Hunter X Hunter, the Nen systeme is THE BEST Power Systeme Its Consistant, easy to learn, hard to Master, and has enough leeway to bend the rules slightly to give creative agency and freedom while being Cohesive and easy to explain/understand. Nen is Litteraly the Use of One's Life Energy, their "Aura", wich is influenced by their personalities, habits and biases. A MAster of Nen is not only someone who's Powerfull as an Aura user, but also someone who has a Deep understanding of Themselves and others to the point where Nen Masters battles is as much about Power than it is about Psychological Warfare.
I'd still say the classification has a use. I think what it is really doing is pointing out the coherence of a magic system. In my opinion a hard magic system is one that a third person(not the writer) could design a tabletop rpg ruleset to use, using only the information the writer provides. All it's doing is pointing out the difference in how the system works, and is language readers and writers can use to discuss the work. It changes how the system feels significantly, and I don't think that's bad that we can talk about it. It's fine to chose not to make your system hard, but taking away the language is a little frustrating for writers and readers who have gone out of their way to create hard magic systems. (Same with how some people object to Hard Sci-fi having realistic physics and sometimes even math)
@@Mirsellus i agree with you. But it gets really annoying when people treat it as sacred to follow. Not your case of course. But it is out there. And worst of all, is when it is used as a framework to imitates another work, creating an inbred cycle. And no it doesn't compare to math in sci-fi because math is obvious in real life. And again, may not be your case, but it is out there.
Something interesting I thought about, is how the mage’s style of using magic effects how the magic turns out. A example of this is how people use magic to make traps. This also brought me to magic circles, which made me try to make a circle for different people with each circle being used by different species to suit their needs. Just something interesting I thought of a while back
ATLA does such a perfect job of worldbuilding each individual society around the respective bending accessible to them, sub-bending styles are always really interesting how much they can range from extremes like metalbending which was thought to be impossible to minor things like sand benders in the desert
The true strenght of Bending is that its steeped in its cultural Lore of the people practicing it. Its a mirror of real martial Arts, and well they show runners USED real Martial Arts as the source of their bending Move and techniques. Water bending= Tai Chi , a style based on body posture, allignement and flowing movement Earth Bening= Hung Gar,a style based on solide postures and stances anchored into the ground Firebending= Northern Shaolin , Strong style with Dynamic and Powerfull movements Airbending= Baguazhang, style based on movement and turning/repositioning oneself with lots of mobility. Wich makes it in turn Cohesive and easely recognisable, you see them do the moves, you know what bending their practice even before seeing the effects.
I like that you mentioned star wars. The way it was with its soft magic sistem was more then perfect, unfortunatelly today force turned into downright devine magic and you can do whatever you want with it and if there are still limitations you go in a pocket dimension that allows you to change reality.
I'm sure this is a bit too late for a suggestion, but in terms of detailed and unique magic systems, the way it is handled in "That Time That I Got Reincarnated As A Slime" I think is really unique, as the magic in the world is split between 2 main varieties, spirit magic which is more conceptual and less understood by the characters of the world, and then physical magic, which is learnable and relies on a more scientific approach, by learning how to manipulate a different type of 'molecule' unique to that world which is abundant in nature and naturally produced in some species. The Anime doesn't do the best job at detailing how the magic works, but there is a ton of detail put into it in the light novel series.
Nice video! Always excited to find a new worldbuilding project to follow. It's pretty cliched at this point but I am a huge sucker for the "weave" analogy and I've woven (pun intended) it into my own story as well. The idea that reality is just a complex tapestry of energies that intertwine in specific ways just makes for such a clear visual analogy of what magic is. In my own world Lifeweavers have the ability to manipulate the weave of their own bodies, drawing energy from certain senses or abilities to bolster the strength of others.
My favourite magic system is from a ttrpg called Mage the Awakening, there are 10 different arcana (fate, time, mind, space, matter, death, forces, prime, life and spirit) and depending on your mastery of these you can cast spells with various levels of power (players are encoureged to make up their own spells and the storyteller (dm) interprets the rules to decide of they posses sufficient mastery). At a full mastery of an arcanum, a mage can create and destroy phenomena related to it for instance. There is also a dimension of anti-reality, called the Abyss, parts of which can get into our reality if a mage messes up.
While it's cool to be gods on Earth like in that RPG (even though you can't do much due to paradox and incredulity and resort to solve problems 'mmmurica style), magic there is actually a mess and just a Dragonball-like power scaling. But yeah: robbing the master of total -party- kill like I did* is priceless. =) * transmuting 8 olympic pools of air in equal amount of nitroglycerin can, sometimes, do that... =) Matter FTW
I personally prefer that of Mage the Ascension, the one with 9 Spheres of magick. It's pretty similar but I think it's more flexible and I really like the idea of consensus and paradigms. Though, I have to admit, it's possible that part of the reason I prefer it is because I _vastly_ prefer the world of Mage the Ascension over the Awakening overall.
A couple ways I like to visualize mana is either a pearl white mass with oscillating colors, or if it's from the soul, mana could take on different colors and forms dependent on the user, the environment, the user's emotions, and how you're applying the mana, whether it be enhancement of an object or direct combat
Hey man, nice video! I've 'just started' worldbuilding my own world (really these ideas have been bouncing around in my head for years and I'm just now getting them out.) Also trying out drawing for the first time. Baby steps. Anyways that is to say that I find videos like yours, of other people going through the process of making their own worlds for the first time really inspiring as there are so many pitfalls to find and avoid.
I realy enjoyed the game Outward, where no one is born with magic. Instead you have to travel to a leyline and offer up a part of life energi to gain mana =]
Rimworld has an amazing magic system. Extremely advanced AI called archotechs become so powerful they essentialy become machine gods, capable of manipulating the very laws of the universe. Some humans can use archotech devices to form a psylink where they can call upon the abilities of these archotechs to their advantage. Maybe a benevolent archotech will teleport some water to extinguish fire, wheras an angry archotech that wants to eliminate humanity will be happy to manipulate the minds of your enemies and drive them berserk.
My favorite hard magic system will probably always be Mistborn’s system. 16 types of metals, and each one lets you do something different. One pushes on metals equal to your weight. If that metal pushes on something greater than your weight, you get pushed instead. Another pulls metals. One dulls emotions while another incites them. One metal lets you see into the future while another that past. One slows time while another speeds it up.
@@mileskile9520most of this stuff is directly explained in the back of the book and also none of this stuff effects the story for more than a few pages before it’s explained. Knowing how alomancy works doesn’t spoil really anything that happens in the story
Here’s my idea of a magic system: To cast magic, an individual must precisely envision constantly shifting magic circles over the duration of the casting time. The only limiter is one’s mental capabilities and memory. Individuals will all have slightly different magic due to quirks of their minds’ eye.
I really like when the power source for magic is well defined and limited. Especially when it’s not just mana from the casters own body/soul. A great example of this is mistborn where people need access to purified metal to activate different magical effects.
The kido in bleach is a good form of structure limited by both knowledge and latent power. It also leaves an open end for the incredibly intelligent to create new kido. It’s a very defined structure but also leaves room for potential outliers that might seem abstract. That along with the zanpakuto seem like two separate forms of magic that can mesh well together.
Blue is better then red (and vice versa) depending on the scenario. Just think of colour theory. If you want your yellow to pop you arent gonna use red. You use blue. The same can be said about magic systems. One isnt "inherently better" then the other, but it may be more suited for the world you are trying to build. And just like some people like blue more then red, some people like certain magic systems more then others
I never really understood the concepts of magic in the Fate anime series, but I love the spectacle of it all. I think Kiritsugu Emiya is the coolest one. He uses the opponent's magic against them. So even though he is a mediocre mage, he uses unorthodox methods to kill that mages aren't equipped to deal with. I also really like the magic in The Irregular at Magic High School. I think it is a cool concept of magic being refined down to programming and you have different factions of modern and traditional magic. There's even room for lost magic in a system like that.
Kiritsugu has a decent understanding of mage craft in general and understanding of the magis mentality as well. Don't let him fool you, El-melloi is a decently powerful magi in general despite his ego. And no Kiritsugu's origin bullet doesn't use his opponent's magic against them. His origin bullet forces the concept of 'cut and binds' onto their magic circuit, causing their magic circuit to break apart and then rebuild in a way that isn't quite right. Just like an electric circuit, even a small random change like that causes it not to function at all or to function irrationally. He needs them to be using their magic circuit at the time he's firing the bullet to cause this to happen.
Hey, a book I read some years ago had a great magic system and one, I would consider unique: "Das Geheimnis von Askier" I don't know if it is available in English, but the titel means something along the lines of "The Mystery of Askier" In this book you can separate the magic in three categories, there are the gifts from the gods, then the ability to use magic and lastly special abilities. The gifts from the gods are special, because they will somewhat correspond to the kind of god, that will gift reward you for your believing, but these are also only "temporary". So they might gift you an item with special abilities, but then these are bound to the item and not the user, or they help to get out of a situation, but this is just this act or there is a ritual required and the god might not answer the ritual every time. The Magic is a bit more interesting in my opinion, the ones that have the ability to use magic can manipulate energy. But not everyone can channel the same amount through himself, this is just an effect on how strong your ability to use magic is. Still this isn't all to the topic, because you need the energy, this means if you want to warm something up, you need to cool something down and because you need to link these two acts together you need exponentially more concentration for stronger magic, which limits the inherent strength of a magician. So they require training, or they wont be able to balance their magic, if not their spell will be fuelled by themselves and they will destroy themselves in something like a black hole, that just consumes till the cost for the spell is fulfilled. To aid the magicians there is something like the world river, it is an invisible flow of energy underground, from which you can get energy and the river will balance it through the whole world. (But to use it, you need to be in proximity of the river). Another darker way of wilding magic is by consuming life energy. So magic can also be used by committing mass murder or for more advanced mages on this end of the spectrum by draining the life of their surrounding. The last category are the abilities and technically magic falls also under it, but these abilities are stuff as necromancy, to consume souls and get all abilities and knowledge from the consumed. But mostly these are simpler things, as the ability to never miss the nail with a hammer, or to inherently understand what someone tells you even if they fail to communicate it properly. It may also just be something silly, like one character who forgot his shoes for a marching exercise or the sword for sword fighting training. These abilities range from handy stuff to somethings one might consider just a talent in an area. I hope you find this insight interesting and I am happy to answer questions to the best of my abilities. :)
I really like HxH powersystem, specifically the ability to create arbitrary abilities with arbitrary limitations under some constraints. The abilities being an expression of yourself more than a tool is also nice. So you could have the ability: I can open any lock, but only on tuesdays on a full moon when hungry. Though I really dislike Gon's ability of: punch really hard. Even Killua's is a bit basic, though he manages to do some cool stuff with it. Having innate constraints (nen type) and abilities being expressions of self means that you create an ability that compensates for your limitations. At least in theory. "Reincarnated in a shonen manga" story (powersystem being very similar to nen) does a way better job at it. It talks about how strong desires can and do manifest as abilities in children and how Ord (energy that fuels the powers) resonates with your emotions and convictions. As a result, the strongest people are all stubborn, but convinced of their own greatness or visions. If anyone has examples of similar stories, please do tell. Tl;dr I really like magic systems where users can create almost any abilities they wish and impose price and conditions on it.
The magic system of Hunter X Hunter is one of my favourites as it has its limitations but seems infinite in its implementations, relying on the user's creativity and personality for how the magic (called nen) manifests. While a person is born with a specific affinity to one type of nen, they can still achieve proficiency in related types through hard work. I love the show so much.
I agree with @Unknownnagon ... Eragons system of magic realy had something I liked a lot. But tbh Frieren takes the cake. Only something you can visualise in your mind, can be done with the help of magic. It puts no real limits on magic itself and is very dependant on the users interpretation of how it functions... Frieren created a tiny black hole.... what i big brain xP Nen from HunterxHunter is also very nice and a rather "hard" system. There are just so many awsome systems! Buuuuuuuuut I dont have a favourite... as long as its not too convoluted and/or convenient as a plot-device I am usually very intrigued by things that we of this reality are not capable of doing. Ok not entirely true... I sometimes ask people what their take on "magic" is, because I think bringing something into reality that previously did not exist fits the bill... So drawing, writing... creating in general, no matter the context is - as far as I am concerned - magic. It doesn't need to be "perfect" or "beautiful". But bringing something into existence from just your thought is a way too powerful ability to have xP Each and every take on "magic" fascinates me. 😅
Lord of the Mysteries is doing quite a good job at it : -otherwordly powers have a source. -they are scaled correctly, with each "magic" pathway being capable (however, some are, to be fair, much better than other ones) -they are limited, since the more potions you drink (and the higher sequence of "magic" you go) the more you're exposed to madness, but also (spoilers !!!!)the more likely you will encounter other people of the same pathway, and because ingredients (espacially at higher sequences) are very limited and often involves killing people, it's very dangerous. Also (spoiler) you can be influenced by the "god" (sequence 0) at the top of you pathway. -they are all very different, (spoiler) even if some are adjacent (you can switch between pathways) and carry related powers, you can really see that it's quite rich : some are focusing on mind powers, others are skilled in instigation and seducing, while some at getting pregn... planting crops ofc :) -a lot of other things make LOTM cool ---> read it ! :)
I think the metallic arts from mistborn are a really great magic system. The entire system revolves around a sort of “equivalent exchange” logic. Where the power “pushes” or “pulls” on something. Whether that be your physical or mental abilities, literally pushing on metal with your weight, or even pulling on time itself. Read mistborn 🙏
On the subject of creating a believable mythology I refer you to Edgar Rice Burroughs' _Gods of Mars_ and Richard Adams' _Watership Down_, both of which feature in-setting creation myths.
I think that it really only depends on the story of the book. If you want to have a story about a character who gradually learns magic throught it, you go with Harry Potter-ish approach. But if you want magic only a lesser part of the world you'd go with the Tolkien-ish approach. And personally, my favourite magic system comes from the nordic poemats(Voluspá, havámál, and so on). Magic there is only briefly explained and what is magic and what isn't, is up for your interpretation(also, there the word for 'magic' is 'wisdom' and word for 'wisdom' is 'wisdom', so often you don't know what is 'wisdom' and what's 'magic'). What I mean that you can consider Mimir's well magical, but it's not in the magic system more a part of the worldbuilding. The only magic we know was there is the 'Seidr', which was why Odin hung himself on the branches of Yggdrasil, to know seidr. So you can throw everything under seidr, but not everything is ever said to have a link to seidr. That's why I love it, it's for you to interpret. Also, that's a great video! Keep it up!👍
In addition to Soft/Hard (and No, because Fantasy doesn't always mean magic) Magic, I also grade things on Low/High/Sci Fantasy. The Fantasy grade, as you can guess by the inclusion of a Sci(fi) level, I base this on the level of technology a world has, in addition to its magic. LotR is a Low Fantasy/Soft Magic. Harry Potter is Low Fantasy/Soft Magic, while FMA would be the Hard Magic counter part to this. Destiny's Crucible is the reason I include "No Magic" fantasy and also one of the reasons I include Science. This one comes in at Sci Fantasy/No Magic. It's also the only good Western "Isekai" (t/l "another world"), as they're no longer in Kansas, so to speak. In this, someone with modern knowledge is transplanted on to an alien world with the equivalent technology of the 15th-16th century. His knowledge base is limited though, so do not expect anything like the tropes you see in the "nation builder" anime. He's a chemist and not even one of the best. The last one is Dungeon Crawler Carl. Sci Fantasy/Hard(ish) Magic. There's a lot of scifi in this series, but it blends it with the magic *_system_* really well, with the lines sometimes being crossed. It was the other reason I had to start using the SciFantasy label a little more than I would have to 10 years ago. This was originally part of that first comment, but it got long in the tooth.
Madoka Magia has been my favourite implementation of a Deal with the Devil magic system. Except, in Madoka, the "Devil", ultimately, doesn't care if _you_ take the deal, because the next person will. It's rarer still, in that Kyubei doesn't recind the offer, despite it being put aside or initially rejected. This allows Madoka to see what kind of Faustian Bargin she would be making and the consequences that it brings. Another magic system I really enjoyed was from, probably, my favourite anime, Witch Hunter Robin. It drew heavily from old European and early North American witch folklore and the characters powers and abilities were based on the archetype of witch they were. There were the classics, such as fire, water, air and earth; electricity, ice, gravity, vision, memory, birds, bugs, dolls. Unlike Avatar though, the types are organized more like a mix of astrology and Roman gods, but doesn't delve deep enough to fall under "hard magic".
0:54 even tho ridiculous, it can actually be a good logical exercise that can lead to what people find better, what "better" means, and how we categorize the attributes of whats better.
I've always liked a magic system where you have have to improve yourself in order to safely use it. Not "Get better at magic" but improve who YOU are by resolving dissonance between what you believe and what is true. Magic that needs YOU to be a better more grounded/enlightened person to use it to a positive effect. It's a sub division of "Magic is controlled by emotion/will" that has always fascinated me.
There's a magic system that's always been on my mind, the one of Mahouka Koko No Rettosei or translated; The Irregular at Magic High School. the magic system there its just- Fascinating to me, the way it- Just makes sense, every single spell has a fundation on actual physics and interactions you can understand. How it sets its limits on understandable rules such as physics, chemestry and how it kind of redefines the concept of magic to fit the setting, "mana" its not just some mysterious energy that its everywhere, its explained and even delved on, throwing the normal concept of "mana" and even deleting the name completely (Psions and Pushions), but still retaining the escence of the word even if separated into two. The way that magic connects with the world, politics, war, evolution of it and the sheer deepth of it all. Love that magic system honestly.
Personally I like to see our world if we gained the law mana I think of it as everyone will gain the ability mana veins in there body animal's will too there very similar to blood veins and everything has a core in there body like a human heart for blood but for mana it's like a sphere and will be colored based on the element When it comes to magic i have always thought of it as limitless based in understanding everyone kinda. Knows that fire burns and eats oxygen as fuel or part of its fuel so everyone has 100% of all elements and 1000% of one element witch be fire water wind earth light dark lightning void divine and Mana would be seen as some special ability like blood manipulation for example or ice or some ability that has rules of it's own.
Whether Blue is better than Red depends on the circumstances and usage. I would say the same for Hard vs Soft Magic, different stories and settings have different needs.
In HP wands are used just as a help item like extra wheels on a bike. There is no need to explain how it works withous them cause it works the same, just a bit harder for the magic user and requires more concentration
You gotta read this manga called "Magi - Labyrinth of Magic". Genuinely, the most unique a magical manga can get. This manga explores the magical themes never explored before. Yeah there is detailed magic system. But why is there magic? Where did it come from? Like how matter is created by atoms, what constitutes a magic? Who made magical dungeons? All these questions might seem normal, like yeah there must be a random overpowered guy who created magic, distributed it, made dungeons, etc. generic stuff, but Magi is NOT this. There is a vast history on how magic and all the stuff came to be. Manga explores the very roots of magic. The series even goes on to explore themes about fate, how magic is bound by it, flow of the universe, and more crazy stuff. Also the manga is great in showing political balance in a magic-based world. Infusion of magic in everyday life. How science fares against magic. What would happen in a war between sorcerers and non-sorcerers. How sorcerers are treated in the world, where majority can't use magic.
I like the idea of magic being linked to a person's mind, willpower, and desire. The mind shapes the magic into what you want it to be; imagining the magic you want to cast more vividly and thoroughly results in the magic actually doing what you intend it to as well improving the spell's "fuel efficiency" Your willpower determines how much fuel you provide to your spell to get its job done, in the case of simply imagining a possible spell but not wanting to cast anything, you of course provide no fuel And your desire determines how fast you cram the fuel into the magic you're casting, leading to faster casting times and possibly erratic behavior of spells if too fast Example 1: You want to get up from the couch and grab food from the fridge 1. You imagine pushing yourself up from the couch, standing up, and walking from your current room all the way into the kitchen, navigating to the fridge, opening said fridge, and grabbing a cold slice of leftover pizza (clear imagination of spell) 2. You decide you're going to follow up on your plan and get up, you are determined to do this. (strong willpower) 3. You're really, really, REALLY hungry Result: You practically leap from the couch to the ground, get in a sprinter pose start dashing towards the kitchen. Despite all your enthusiasm, you accidentally trip over yourself halfway through your current room in your haste. After your fall to the ground you literally bounce back up and continue your sprint while screaming "I FUCKING LOVE COLD PIZZA", bumping into walls and doorways as you navigate through your house at breakneck speeds. Within seconds you arrive at your fridge, rip its heavy metal door open, and proceed to fiercely grip a cold pizza from the lower left shelf and cram it into your gullet. Example 2: Same scenario 1. You imagine looking for a bite to eat in the fridge (bad imagination of spell) 2. You decide you might as well get food, nothing better to do anyways (meh willpower) 3. You aren't really that hungry (meh desire) Result: You slowly get up from the couch, start walking towards the kitchen before getting distracted by a heads up penny on the ground. "Oooh, lucky penny", you say while picking the penny up, immediately forgetting what you got up to do. You then proceed to aimlessly walk around your house for a while before you finally remember, "ah, the fridge" and successfully walk over to open it. You browse and mull over your options for a bit before deciding cold pizza suits your current mood best and slowly nibble at it as you focus on other, more pressing matters; like binge watching ATLA for the 17th time.
Have you seen The Magicians show or read the book trilogy? That one had a fascinating magic system built on the idea of subtle hand gestures manipulating the energy source almost like you are weaving a spell with your fingers. The concept took a step beyond when the first major villain grew himself extra fingers specifically to cast more complex spells usually inaccessible to humans. The other magic system example I'd offer is that of Witch Hat Atelier. Currently only a manga, getting an anime next year. The biggest secret witches keep from others is that anyone can do it. There's a lot of limitations on what can be done that are all based on witch society laws, otherwise, in truth you could do seemingly anything. However casting a spell is an act of drawing. You draw magic circles, the symbols inside dictate information on the effect the circle has. You can even manipulate the size, length, direction and repetition of the symbols to manipulate their effect while the variant of magic ink you use can augment the effect. Because the secret of casting must be kept secret from regular humans, apprentices aren't allowed to cast in public until they are able to draw perfect circles without looking as witches hide the act of drawing behind the cloak they wear.
I have seen a bit of of it. As for witch hat everyone in the comments has recommended it so I've started reading it. Thanks for taking the time to recommend some awesome content.
Hey I'm just passing by but I saw that you used clips from other shows such as overlord and would like it if you put them somewhere in the description. And good luck on the world building ❤
A magic system I've been working on/off has 13 Attributes, 10 Aspects, 0-9 Tiers of Scaling, and the central Anchor for a Spell Circle that determines the overall function of a Skill/Spell. The intent of the magic system is to allow the creation of a vast variety of customized spells for each Practitioner, but to also be as balanced as possible by making all forms of Magic follow the same exact rules set. Sadly motivation is a weak point of mine, otherwise I'd be much further on.
I have a bunch of magic systems that I like: Alchemy from the Atelier Series, blastia from Tales of Vesperia, Materia from FF7, and the charms from Hollow Knight. Why, yes, I do like external magic more than genetic magic.
I have a few personal Loves with magic. My biggest one is with the separation of magic from self, something me and my group refer to as Artifice. The user is about as inert as a rock, but with careful and methodical tool use, The limits are only the gear and the user's knowledge how to use it effectively. In short it is a more fantastical analog to Electricity in this state. Runestones charged with magic, invoked together to cause magic, A wand hooked up to a backpack filled with liquid mana to create a flamethrower, Using your skills create Miniture Automatons to help you with your tasks. Truely the sky is the limit the runner up for me is Voice. Eragon or Skyrim for example, Words that uttering cause real things to happen. Eragon overshot this magic and it felt DBZ ish at one point, Skyrim undershot it with its mechanics, The last category Is more of a personal one. What if wizards all had a Different UI for how they interacted with magic? Say for example, Mozart, What if he interacted with magic through music? He could see the strands of power in the form of Notes and by creating such grand scripts of music He could cast spells that last forever. The tragedy is then revealed that those that witnessed the magic only experienced half of it. They only heard the music, they did not see Play invoked by the sound. Those sensitive enough may catch glimpses of his intent in their minds, but not to the degree he wanted. His work would be remembered forever, even if the full extent of the spell was lost. That is just off the top of my head but it is my jam
I think your own project is very good, but as you said the character designs are slightly lacking, I believe this is due to wanting realistic proportions with not so realistic faces, I think it might be good to do away with the realistic proportions and exaggerate a bit, it might be helpful to look at similar successful styles (not that you don't know this because you probably do), but I think Osama King's Ranking and Friren has an artstyle similar to yours but different in meaningful ways it might be good to take from them
I'll throw my chip in, why not. My world has a magic system that changes you as it goes, but only according to your true self. You secretly a selfish dude? Well, you may gain the powers of a Runecarver, but with enough power you may turn to darker and darker magics until your spells can only be cast using fresh human blood. This way stepping into the magical world is an existential threat if you don't properly check yourself and make an attempt to be a genuine and kind person (and even then, genuine and kind people can always be corrupted). Sort of complicated but the magic is so interwoven with the world that it's mechanics are the only reason the world can breathe, and thus make it a mystery to unravel and understand. In other words, fancy magic match u and make u more u, but not always good u if bad u is more
Check out Witch Hat Atelier. Fantastic art, characters and the magic system is very intricate. It has alot of DONTS which at first seem kind of tyrannical by the "regulators of magic" in that universe but as the story progresses it really does make you ponder if the tyranny and the absolutism of whats forbidden come from a necessary place. It doesnt have an anime yet but its just a matter of time. That said, I would really really recommend reading the manga. The art is sublime. cool vid
@@CreoSolus I've written more than ever and my story and it's magic is developing so well. Bc of your advice to tie it to everything from day to day improvement to politics
Reading Suprem magnus a web novel that has a cool magic system and world basic elements magic science mix magic tech and balancing many races with advantages and disadvantages humans around low physical strength but all elements beasts undead many other unique although there is some flaws mainly with the main character being very power fantasy esq but still writan pretty well
Naruto have interesting magic system imo, tho it gets overshadowed by everything else. Atlast earlier Naruto, by the point it gets to the world war its all out of whack atlast i got inspired by that one when thinking up my magic system
Interesting concept, if you think about it cpu's are made from magic rocks(silicon wafers) and have strange rune carvings on them (light edging) and are powered by lightening (electricity). Pretty magical if you ask me.
I like when magic maintains a level of awe and mystery, but I don’t like it when it becomes a superpower. I also don’t like the concept of magitech as at that point it’s just science and no longer magic. My one exception is Final Fantasy 14 because I love that game.
The funny thing about Harry Potter magic system is that it is a hard system, but the author expend so little time writing about it that it feels a soft system. There is a stamina thing going on in that system, Harry grow incredible tired of trying to cast patronum, and Albus got tired killing inferis, buy that was basically all times it happened. Wands are not necessary to cast magic, but it made it far more easier, so occidental wizards need their wands to cast magic, because they don´t train in cast magic with out them, but african wizards don´t use wands. There is also talent, there are people without the talent, people with little talent and real monsters like Albus or Voldemort. There is also knowledge, and dedication. Most of the wizards in that world use their talents to mundane task, few look for battle power and deadly abilities.
one of, if not the best magic system I have ever seen is from the light novel supreme magus, one of the most famous light novels. It is so incredibly interesting because to give you a quick run-down of what it is about: it is basically an isekai, but done in a really cool way. The main character Lith (his reincarnated name) is born into the world as a baby and finds out that magic exists in the world, but because he's from a poor family he knows absolutely nothing about magic and it's secrets. Even the books about magic are simply too expensive for him at the start. So he straight up has to discover everything on his own and experiment with different ideas. It is really comparable to mushoku tensei at the start. So if you liked the start of mushoku tensei you will love the start of this novel (first 72 chapters im pretty sure) Also not even mentioning the amazing magic system, the characters are all really well-made (yurial the goat). Try reading the description of it, if it sounds interesting you can give it a go.
So two related things worth considering is how many magical abilities does any given practitioner posses and what are ranges of what any one power can do? For instance in something like DnD a wizard might know a hundred or more spells but each of those spells does one very specific thing with power being the only varying factor (either caster level or using higher level spell slots depending on the edition), now take a sorcerer who might only have twenty toe thirty spells but would have a greater range on exactly what each one could do. Alternatively if you look at a lot of the Xanxia/Xanxia adjacent/LitRPG, you can see full practitioners with as few as 2 very flexible powers up to something like 25 powers being actually useful in combat with some more being of use in some very niche situations. I would put something like FMA very clearly at one corner of this with everyone technically only having one incredibly flexible power, with something DnD on the other end where there are hundreds of incredibly rigid spells to choose from.
@@CreoSolus not exactly you also have thing's like say x-men where everyone has one power, and while it may get slightly stronger through training and they can certainly learn to use it in slightly different ways the power it's self does one thing. You can also have bunches of powers and have them all be super flexible with training but that get's much much harder to make interesting because then anyone can do anything wheeeee! which makes it both for bad games and hard to make interesting in fiction most of the time. Though having that DnD wizard but going with one of the current sub-classes (scribe's wizard) to let them specifically modify the spell's damage type comes close to that by giving them a narrow way in which they can modify any of there plethora of abilities.
My question would be for the anime/manga of freiren, would that be hard or soft magic??? Its system has the rule of anything that can be done based on your imagination....but imagination is limitless, and so depends on the person. There could be no cap. But there is a set rule. So im lost on that xD
That's when the soft or hard breaks down as freirren is both. The method of mana is hard however the limitless amount of spells, leans more towards soft. I wouldn't be able to put into one category. Sorry.
I have an idea for a kind of magepunk style world, with extremely high magic which is very accessible (low floor high ceiling) but I’m struggling with how much the reader needs to understand about the magic system. Obviously I’ll know how everything works, but I think the hyper-stylization punk brings to a world will allow for a crazy fun and cool system.
Sympathetic crafting magic is a cool idea to me: sewing symbols into clothes to imbue those garmits with the properties represented by the symbol or material of the thread for instance, or Book Binding, the Grimoire can be used to cast spells because you have literally BOUND discrete phenomena between the pages of the book during it’s creation and with the right words you can open the book up and call them out again
If you ask me the best magic systems are the ones that are both clear and concise and understandable with rules as to how they work but was interesting and underlying Mysteries that still come from how deep the abyss of the knowledge that can be learned from the magic system is and how that massive Gap in what is shown and what we know there is more to learn about the magic system being what is the true magic namely being knowing that there's so much more to learn but it's so incomprehensible because it doesn't necessarily make sense to our common human senses or inferences about how the world is supposed to work and to come across someone who has seen those depths and understood them is what makes them so amazing and more importantly both mystical and mysterious but also terrifying as you don't know what they know beyond what you could ever imagine.
idk, my favorite magic system would be something like Black Clover, even if I'm not the biggest fan of the franchise. What I like about it is that everyone gets predetermined mana reserves, that are used to cast magic (they probably refill after the character rests for a while) and their magic control (even if you know the strongest spells and have vast amount of mana, your magic can fail/miss the target). The part that I like the most is growth, character can learn new spells (they are limited to their attribute) and improve their already existing ones by increasing power output and control itself. There are also some character that have abilities that bend the rules (like anti-magic or time-space slash), which I find really cool, but I don't really like the delivery and power scaling of said characters, but it's not a big minus for me.
Bleach's system I also find pretty cool. Even if you have instant-death ability, it wouldn't work on an enemy that has more spiritual pressure (read: power level) than you (I'm pretty sure this only works if difference in power is very big, not if you are close in terms of spiritual power). I'm not really fan of weak character with niche abilities, so this aspects takes them out of the picture when fighting a major villain.
My whole book is about different magic systems kind of in one world, and personally I think building magic systems is amazing and important to a story, but it's also interesting how you could make different magic systems interact, and what exactly would happen when 2 users of different magics try to create a spell together.
A few books I've read recently with really amazing magic systems! The Dead Take The A Train: The main character stiches spells into her skin and hurts herself to use magic, ripping muscles and fat out of her body for powerful spells The UnWanteds: Component based magic that requires signs and words to cast spells The Alchemist (Stories of Nicholas Flemmel): The energy in your body [nutrients and what not] are used for spells and fit into elemental archetypes Renegades Trilogy: Prodigies have specific powers granted to them based off of life experiences
Question: May I use the word Ramus, in the context you've put it. It something I'm working on I use the word mana, but it feels so over used these days that it just feels off putting. but the word Ramus has an interesting feel to it.
I try to write my on fantasy story havely inspired by Bleach and medival times. My magic system is quite uniqe - as I never heard about smilar one but maybe I wrong. That you need crystal to use magic is they are diffrent crystal given you smiple spells for basci elements. You can't just use crystals they only works as part of tool/waepon - you have to make action with item with crystal to cast spell. And you can combine one type crystals with other types crystal to get diffrent spells.
Eragon has an interesting magic system i really like. The main magic system uses knowledge as a power as the magic is just a language where every thing you say is true and what happens depends on your imagination, everything costs energy and if u use a spell witch you don't have enough energy for you just straight up die as the spell can't be stopped midway through and will just drain all the energy you have.
Thanks for the reminder, it's been years since ive heard of Eragon.
@@CreoSolusI haven't read them, but he actually made more, including a Murtagh spinoff.
What I liked a lot more about that magic system was the way Wizards/Dragonriders fight. Magic is so destructive and so dificult to defend against that if a open fight between two magic users brakes out it is a nearly guaranteed death for both of them.
So in reality fights consist of a intense staredown while they try to break trough the others mental defences to stop them from casting anything. Only once somebody has the upperhand, or feels that the other is distracted they actualy attack.
It makes for a really interresting dynamic, which I havnt seen elsewhere.
I like how Eragon magic works but despiste how It ended as "I'm the strongest If I know more" and this make the end of the story just an finger snap. Its too "hard magic" in a point that power scaling become a problem to solve more then a stair to climb
It’s pretty much the earth sea magic system
I'd argue that Light wasn't changed all that much by the Death Note, but was just given the ability to enact his desires. I mean he's screaming "I am a god" by the end of episode 2
I agree /\. also, I've never wanted an MC to suffer misfortune or die more than Light, truly an ignorant fool till his last bloody breath.
Yeah I guess you're right he was kind of a psycho before hand.
@@CreoSolusIt is interesting because the point is made later when Light loses his memories of the death note how much of a different person he would be without it. While it might not supernaturally twist it's user, the power it offers certainly brings the worst out of them in a way that even the One Ring would envy.
Light is just a case of power corrupting the person, without the death note, he would have grew up a to be a completely normal yet exceptional man, however the sudden acquiring of power altered that fate.
@voice-less I disagree. Even before the note, he viewed himself as a superior person. His ability to make and maintain relationships was all a pretense. He is a sociopath, and lying comes as easily as breathing, while he values himself higher than others at the same time he cannot help but put himself in danger and accept Ls challenge and in the process revealing himself. He wounds everyone around him and even himself. A deeply flawed person to be sure. Though everyone deserves a chance, Light is someone I would not give one. He has lost his humanity after and "ascended to godhood"
Edit: I feel I was not hard enough.
Near the end, he was a rabid, cornered animal that needed to be put down.
I like the idea that Magic is a living entity. You can't control it without it fighting back, but you can't let it run wild either.
When you have to choose the magic but it also has to choose you. Good type for stories about fate.
@@CreoSolus In a way, yeah. I'm mainly thinking of Friendship being one option.
@@TheGoldenPhoenix-nm8qe friendship as in what way? I’m designing a magic system that’s specified for duo relationships centered around the concept of keys and locks I would like to hear your thoughts peaked my interest out of all the comments by far plus I love adventure times magic system 😂
You can't just stop with a mythology; exploring the ecological history of magic on a world will bring new understanding of the world as you develop it. It's *very* time consuming, however, but really worthwhile.
Definitely, world building can be a bottomless pit at times.
Stormlight archive’s magic system is elite imo and very good to look at
Thank you for the recommendation
Stormlight is the goat imo. Kingkiller Chronicles and Mistborn are both good examples of physics based magic systems.
Stormlight archive is fantastic, their magic system is so well thought out and explained!
Exactly what I was thinking about while watching this
Ive been recently reading the Manga Witch Hat Atelier, which has been a really enjoyable magic system to follow. Magic is casted on ink and paper and follows a really hard magic system. Beautiful art as well.
I love this manga, the magic is so in-depth it feels kinda like its own drawn programming language for spells , there are a lot of interesting and clever ways it's used throughout the series.
Also I think you might like Magus of the library it has a similar vibe.
I've got to check it out then, thanks for the recommendation.
Update: love the art style. Looking forward to reading it.
For constructed magic and how it affects society there's The Wheel of Time series (the books by Robert Jordan): magic is done by channeling an extra dimensional source of magic power and by weaving the five elemental aspects of that power (earth, air, fire, water and spirit) to create various effects, it's not almighty and has a lot of limits.
For the society influence, that's the basis of the series: 3000 years before there was a cataclysm due to the fact that the male counterpart of magic was tainted by a god of destruction and all male channelers are destined to become more and more insane; before that cataclysm the society was like a futuristic society with magic everywhere.
For military use it's complicated: the female channelers refrain from using magic for military purpose first because they wanted to regain the trust of common people and after it almost became a tradition (but they still lacked thr trust).
But when the time comes to go to war: totally devastating and it's also used in conjunction with new technologies to gain tactical advantage.
There's no mana but normal fatigue: a mage becomes more and more tired the more magic (or more powerful magic) is used, then there are different level of power that are an innate charatersic of each person (and that allows to use more or less powerful magics).
Another example of magic for military purposes it's Raymond Feist books: do the exact opposite. 😂
It has the most moronic explanation I ever read for why mages aren't used in conflicts: "a mage uses a spell and the enemy mage uses a counterspell and responds, so the first mage uses a counterspell, too and so on, until the cavalry arrives and kills the mages" (seriously) and everyone accepted as the most insightful thing was ever said, no one realised that that explanation could be applied for basically EVERITHING in war but it deosn't prevent from not fighting only with fists.
I mean, it's not that we dont' use jets because there's anti-aircraft weapons and don't use tanks because there's anti-tank weapons: it's always a race on who is better at what to gain an edge (in non-asymmetric wars, at lest)...
I've wanted to pick up the wheel of time just haven't had the time. Thanks for taking the time to write a well presented recommendation.
Really Appreciate it.
Im really hoping to incorporate the military properly into my story.
I love worldbuilding, and magic systems are a thing I spent a LOT of time on.
I like these worldbuilding videos. Gives inspiration and help on understanding some stuff.
Eager to see the next one !
Glad you like them! And thank you for the motivational comment.
I don't even do world building and stuff and i love these videos 😂
My favourite magic system is in the chinese fantasy series Lord of mysteries, I could go on forever in all the ways it’s just awesome but I’ll keep it short.
You drink potion, you gain that potions power, there are 20 something different starter potions that all gives different powers, each starter potions have their own progression tree where you start as a sequence 9 all the way up to 0.
To be able to get the next potion you need to act in accordance to said potions “intent/powers/will” for example if you start with the Seer potion you need to act as a Seer, that can be very abstract or literal.
You can’t transition between potion lines so the first potion is very important. Ingredients are also a factor for progression.
Then there are all the underlying things like gods/churches/cults, the potions and the magical world as a whole is hidden from the average person because the world is set in a lovecraftian cathulu horror world where knowledge is actively dangerous.
Drinking a potion symbolises abandoning the mundane and becoming a part of the horror, a “beyonder” (someone who’s drunk a potion) fights a life long battle with madness and becomes horrifying monsters should they lose control and this gets way WAY worse the further you progress, which correlates nicely with the stronger you are the more you suffer the risk of going completely mad.
Whoops this got long, uhhh LoM is a long web serial that I personally love but it isn’t for everyone, especially those who like it more faster paced.
It sounds really unique and interesting. Thanks for the brief intro to it. I'll have to check ot out some time.
Damn fr? That sounds really cool, gotta give it a try.
@diavolojaegar yes! I just couldn’t get into all the cool ways it intersects with the world around it
.... me stealy stealy
RAAAAAAAAAAAAH LOTM MENTIONED 💥💥💥💥💥🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣💯💯
my top favorite form of spell casting is woven/manalines kinds, the ones with circles with texts/symbols inside them as the spell being built and given instructions.
Nen (HxH) is the best magic system for me, perfect internal logic and manifestation of the psychology of the characters
Agreed its very nice system
I’m making a magic system and world right now, and you just gave me many many ideas; your characters and especially your branch analogy are super cool (even if that isn’t the direction I’m going) and I’m super excited to see what you do next!!!
The classification of magic sistems into hard and soft had a lasting wound in the type of magic system I made, glad to see the breaking of it^^
The fact that magic systems can impact the personalities of the wielder wasn't something I thought of before, so that was an eye-opener too!
Great video as always^^
Thank you, XD yip it's just too over used.
Good luck with your future magic system.
Classifications are but afterthoughts. Not like people couldn't write magic before. I heard of hard soft before I actually write. But as soon as I do I realise it is just dumbed down doorstep to help babies getting in the house.
If you want a "Magic" systeme that as an impact on the users personalities, then i recommend Hunter X Hunter, the Nen systeme is THE BEST Power Systeme
Its Consistant, easy to learn, hard to Master, and has enough leeway to bend the rules slightly to give creative agency and freedom while being Cohesive and easy to explain/understand.
Nen is Litteraly the Use of One's Life Energy, their "Aura", wich is influenced by their personalities, habits and biases.
A MAster of Nen is not only someone who's Powerfull as an Aura user, but also someone who has a Deep understanding of Themselves and others to the point where Nen Masters battles is as much about Power than it is about Psychological Warfare.
I'd still say the classification has a use. I think what it is really doing is pointing out the coherence of a magic system. In my opinion a hard magic system is one that a third person(not the writer) could design a tabletop rpg ruleset to use, using only the information the writer provides.
All it's doing is pointing out the difference in how the system works, and is language readers and writers can use to discuss the work. It changes how the system feels significantly, and I don't think that's bad that we can talk about it. It's fine to chose not to make your system hard, but taking away the language is a little frustrating for writers and readers who have gone out of their way to create hard magic systems. (Same with how some people object to Hard Sci-fi having realistic physics and sometimes even math)
@@Mirsellus i agree with you. But it gets really annoying when people treat it as sacred to follow. Not your case of course. But it is out there.
And worst of all, is when it is used as a framework to imitates another work, creating an inbred cycle. And no it doesn't compare to math in sci-fi because math is obvious in real life. And again, may not be your case, but it is out there.
Something interesting I thought about, is how the mage’s style of using magic effects how the magic turns out. A example of this is how people use magic to make traps. This also brought me to magic circles, which made me try to make a circle for different people with each circle being used by different species to suit their needs.
Just something interesting I thought of a while back
Good point, really nice way to make your magic system unique.
ATLA does such a perfect job of worldbuilding each individual society around the respective bending accessible to them, sub-bending styles are always really interesting how much they can range from extremes like metalbending which was thought to be impossible to minor things like sand benders in the desert
It is a really well done story and world.
The true strenght of Bending is that its steeped in its cultural Lore of the people practicing it.
Its a mirror of real martial Arts, and well they show runners USED real Martial Arts as the source of their bending Move and techniques.
Water bending= Tai Chi , a style based on body posture, allignement and flowing movement
Earth Bening= Hung Gar,a style based on solide postures and stances anchored into the ground
Firebending= Northern Shaolin , Strong style with Dynamic and Powerfull movements
Airbending= Baguazhang, style based on movement and turning/repositioning oneself with lots of mobility.
Wich makes it in turn Cohesive and easely recognisable, you see them do the moves, you know what bending their practice even before seeing the effects.
7:01: "emphasis on the book part" cracked me up
Can't be to careful
how does this not have more views
Thanks for that XD, enjoy the first comment PIN
@@CreoSolus i commented that halfway through when I looked at the view count. but seriously this is really high quality.
I like that you mentioned star wars. The way it was with its soft magic sistem was more then perfect, unfortunatelly today force turned into downright devine magic and you can do whatever you want with it and if there are still limitations you go in a pocket dimension that allows you to change reality.
Yeah it's wack, they've gone completely off the rails with it.
The Force let you shoot lightning from your fingers and come back from the dead in the 80s, I'm not sure what limitations you thought there were?
I'm sure this is a bit too late for a suggestion, but in terms of detailed and unique magic systems, the way it is handled in "That Time That I Got Reincarnated As A Slime" I think is really unique, as the magic in the world is split between 2 main varieties, spirit magic which is more conceptual and less understood by the characters of the world, and then physical magic, which is learnable and relies on a more scientific approach, by learning how to manipulate a different type of 'molecule' unique to that world which is abundant in nature and naturally produced in some species. The Anime doesn't do the best job at detailing how the magic works, but there is a ton of detail put into it in the light novel series.
Nice video! Always excited to find a new worldbuilding project to follow.
It's pretty cliched at this point but I am a huge sucker for the "weave" analogy and I've woven (pun intended) it into my own story as well. The idea that reality is just a complex tapestry of energies that intertwine in specific ways just makes for such a clear visual analogy of what magic is. In my own world Lifeweavers have the ability to manipulate the weave of their own bodies, drawing energy from certain senses or abilities to bolster the strength of others.
XD nice one, sounds awesome best of luck with your world.
My favourite magic system is from a ttrpg called Mage the Awakening, there are 10 different arcana (fate, time, mind, space, matter, death, forces, prime, life and spirit) and depending on your mastery of these you can cast spells with various levels of power (players are encoureged to make up their own spells and the storyteller (dm) interprets the rules to decide of they posses sufficient mastery). At a full mastery of an arcanum, a mage can create and destroy phenomena related to it for instance.
There is also a dimension of anti-reality, called the Abyss, parts of which can get into our reality if a mage messes up.
Sounds really interesting, the only board games I'm familiar with is Catan and dragonology.
While it's cool to be gods on Earth like in that RPG (even though you can't do much due to paradox and incredulity and resort to solve problems 'mmmurica style), magic there is actually a mess and just a Dragonball-like power scaling.
But yeah: robbing the master of total -party- kill like I did* is priceless. =)
* transmuting 8 olympic pools of air in equal amount of nitroglycerin can, sometimes, do that... =)
Matter FTW
I personally prefer that of Mage the Ascension, the one with 9 Spheres of magick. It's pretty similar but I think it's more flexible and I really like the idea of consensus and paradigms. Though, I have to admit, it's possible that part of the reason I prefer it is because I _vastly_ prefer the world of Mage the Ascension over the Awakening overall.
A couple ways I like to visualize mana is either a pearl white mass with oscillating colors, or if it's from the soul, mana could take on different colors and forms dependent on the user, the environment, the user's emotions, and how you're applying the mana, whether it be enhancement of an object or direct combat
Sounds majestic,
Hey man, nice video! I've 'just started' worldbuilding my own world (really these ideas have been bouncing around in my head for years and I'm just now getting them out.) Also trying out drawing for the first time. Baby steps. Anyways that is to say that I find videos like yours, of other people going through the process of making their own worlds for the first time really inspiring as there are so many pitfalls to find and avoid.
Thats awesome we've all got to start somewhere.
Best of luck for your future writing.
I realy enjoyed the game Outward, where no one is born with magic. Instead you have to travel to a leyline and offer up a part of life energi to gain mana =]
Rimworld has an amazing magic system. Extremely advanced AI called archotechs become so powerful they essentialy become machine gods, capable of manipulating the very laws of the universe. Some humans can use archotech devices to form a psylink where they can call upon the abilities of these archotechs to their advantage. Maybe a benevolent archotech will teleport some water to extinguish fire, wheras an angry archotech that wants to eliminate humanity will be happy to manipulate the minds of your enemies and drive them berserk.
"Not magic, air bending!"
-- Avatar Aang The Last Airbender
XD nice one
My favorite hard magic system will probably always be Mistborn’s system. 16 types of metals, and each one lets you do something different.
One pushes on metals equal to your weight. If that metal pushes on something greater than your weight, you get pushed instead. Another pulls metals. One dulls emotions while another incites them. One metal lets you see into the future while another that past. One slows time while another speeds it up.
Agreed, the mistborn trilogy is an awesome set of books
Bro you’re spoiling mistborn a lot with this comment
@@mileskile9520most of this stuff is directly explained in the back of the book and also none of this stuff effects the story for more than a few pages before it’s explained. Knowing how alomancy works doesn’t spoil really anything that happens in the story
@@meamcatnm knowing about their being 16 metals is pretty big in my opinion
this is amazing man i can totally see this blowing up in the future i just subscribed keep up the good work 👍
Really appreciate it. Will try to keep up the quality
Here’s my idea of a magic system:
To cast magic, an individual must precisely envision constantly shifting magic circles over the duration of the casting time. The only limiter is one’s mental capabilities and memory. Individuals will all have slightly different magic due to quirks of their minds’ eye.
Interesting
I really like when the power source for magic is well defined and limited. Especially when it’s not just mana from the casters own body/soul. A great example of this is mistborn where people need access to purified metal to activate different magical effects.
It is truly a good book series
The kido in bleach is a good form of structure limited by both knowledge and latent power. It also leaves an open end for the incredibly intelligent to create new kido. It’s a very defined structure but also leaves room for potential outliers that might seem abstract. That along with the zanpakuto seem like two separate forms of magic that can mesh well together.
Interesting, however im not very familiar with bleach.
Always nice to hear of new characters out there.
Blue is better then red (and vice versa) depending on the scenario. Just think of colour theory. If you want your yellow to pop you arent gonna use red. You use blue. The same can be said about magic systems. One isnt "inherently better" then the other, but it may be more suited for the world you are trying to build. And just like some people like blue more then red, some people like certain magic systems more then others
Well said. Totally agree with you.
Nah blue and red are terrible, green is objectively the best color.
@@bbodyboi was that the most creative colour you could come up with? Because green is not a creative colour
@@jismeraiverhoeven oh sorry I meant celadon lol
in my opinion, the powers system and world building of skyland is what comes the closest to subtle perfection
An absolute classic, for sure.
@@CreoSolus make a review video about it👀
I never really understood the concepts of magic in the Fate anime series, but I love the spectacle of it all. I think Kiritsugu Emiya is the coolest one. He uses the opponent's magic against them. So even though he is a mediocre mage, he uses unorthodox methods to kill that mages aren't equipped to deal with.
I also really like the magic in The Irregular at Magic High School. I think it is a cool concept of magic being refined down to programming and you have different factions of modern and traditional magic. There's even room for lost magic in a system like that.
Both are very unusual and nicely portrayed.
Kiritsugu has a decent understanding of mage craft in general and understanding of the magis mentality as well. Don't let him fool you, El-melloi is a decently powerful magi in general despite his ego. And no Kiritsugu's origin bullet doesn't use his opponent's magic against them. His origin bullet forces the concept of 'cut and binds' onto their magic circuit, causing their magic circuit to break apart and then rebuild in a way that isn't quite right. Just like an electric circuit, even a small random change like that causes it not to function at all or to function irrationally. He needs them to be using their magic circuit at the time he's firing the bullet to cause this to happen.
Hey, a book I read some years ago had a great magic system and one, I would consider unique: "Das Geheimnis von Askier"
I don't know if it is available in English, but the titel means something along the lines of "The Mystery of Askier"
In this book you can separate the magic in three categories, there are the gifts from the gods, then the ability to use magic and lastly special abilities.
The gifts from the gods are special, because they will somewhat correspond to the kind of god, that will gift reward you for your believing, but these are also only "temporary". So they might gift you an item with special abilities, but then these are bound to the item and not the user, or they help to get out of a situation, but this is just this act or there is a ritual required and the god might not answer the ritual every time.
The Magic is a bit more interesting in my opinion, the ones that have the ability to use magic can manipulate energy. But not everyone can channel the same amount through himself, this is just an effect on how strong your ability to use magic is. Still this isn't all to the topic, because you need the energy, this means if you want to warm something up, you need to cool something down and because you need to link these two acts together you need exponentially more concentration for stronger magic, which limits the inherent strength of a magician. So they require training, or they wont be able to balance their magic, if not their spell will be fuelled by themselves and they will destroy themselves in something like a black hole, that just consumes till the cost for the spell is fulfilled. To aid the magicians there is something like the world river, it is an invisible flow of energy underground, from which you can get energy and the river will balance it through the whole world. (But to use it, you need to be in proximity of the river).
Another darker way of wilding magic is by consuming life energy. So magic can also be used by committing mass murder or for more advanced mages on this end of the spectrum by draining the life of their surrounding.
The last category are the abilities and technically magic falls also under it, but these abilities are stuff as necromancy, to consume souls and get all abilities and knowledge from the consumed. But mostly these are simpler things, as the ability to never miss the nail with a hammer, or to inherently understand what someone tells you even if they fail to communicate it properly. It may also just be something silly, like one character who forgot his shoes for a marching exercise or the sword for sword fighting training. These abilities range from handy stuff to somethings one might consider just a talent in an area.
I hope you find this insight interesting and I am happy to answer questions to the best of my abilities. :)
Nice
Thanks
I really like HxH powersystem, specifically the ability to create arbitrary abilities with arbitrary limitations under some constraints. The abilities being an expression of yourself more than a tool is also nice. So you could have the ability: I can open any lock, but only on tuesdays on a full moon when hungry. Though I really dislike Gon's ability of: punch really hard. Even Killua's is a bit basic, though he manages to do some cool stuff with it. Having innate constraints (nen type) and abilities being expressions of self means that you create an ability that compensates for your limitations. At least in theory. "Reincarnated in a shonen manga" story (powersystem being very similar to nen) does a way better job at it. It talks about how strong desires can and do manifest as abilities in children and how Ord (energy that fuels the powers) resonates with your emotions and convictions. As a result, the strongest people are all stubborn, but convinced of their own greatness or visions.
If anyone has examples of similar stories, please do tell.
Tl;dr I really like magic systems where users can create almost any abilities they wish and impose price and conditions on it.
Totally agree, i loved how the stronger the rules and consequences the more power the power could become
The magic system of Hunter X Hunter is one of my favourites as it has its limitations but seems infinite in its implementations, relying on the user's creativity and personality for how the magic (called nen) manifests. While a person is born with a specific affinity to one type of nen, they can still achieve proficiency in related types through hard work. I love the show so much.
Nen is pretty awesome ngl
I agree with @Unknownnagon ... Eragons system of magic realy had something I liked a lot. But tbh Frieren takes the cake. Only something you can visualise in your mind, can be done with the help of magic. It puts no real limits on magic itself and is very dependant on the users interpretation of how it functions... Frieren created a tiny black hole.... what i big brain xP
Nen from HunterxHunter is also very nice and a rather "hard" system. There are just so many awsome systems!
Buuuuuuuuut I dont have a favourite... as long as its not too convoluted and/or convenient as a plot-device I am usually very intrigued by things that we of this reality are not capable of doing.
Ok not entirely true... I sometimes ask people what their take on "magic" is, because I think bringing something into reality that previously did not exist fits the bill... So drawing, writing... creating in general, no matter the context is - as far as I am concerned - magic. It doesn't need to be "perfect" or "beautiful". But bringing something into existence from just your thought is a way too powerful ability to have xP
Each and every take on "magic" fascinates me. 😅
Well said, same here i just love to see different interpretations of magic in media.
Nen is pretty unique and interestingly used.
Lord of the Mysteries is doing quite a good job at it :
-otherwordly powers have a source.
-they are scaled correctly, with each "magic" pathway being capable (however, some are, to be fair, much better than other ones)
-they are limited, since the more potions you drink (and the higher sequence of "magic" you go) the more you're exposed to madness, but also (spoilers !!!!)the more likely you will encounter other people of the same pathway, and because ingredients (espacially at higher sequences) are very limited and often involves killing people, it's very dangerous. Also (spoiler) you can be influenced by the "god" (sequence 0) at the top of you pathway.
-they are all very different, (spoiler) even if some are adjacent (you can switch between pathways) and carry related powers, you can really see that it's quite rich : some are focusing on mind powers, others are skilled in instigation and seducing, while some at getting pregn... planting crops ofc :)
-a lot of other things make LOTM cool ---> read it ! :)
Thats for the recommendation and brief introduction to it
I think the metallic arts from mistborn are a really great magic system. The entire system revolves around a sort of “equivalent exchange” logic. Where the power “pushes” or “pulls” on something. Whether that be your physical or mental abilities, literally pushing on metal with your weight, or even pulling on time itself. Read mistborn 🙏
On the subject of creating a believable mythology I refer you to Edgar Rice Burroughs' _Gods of Mars_ and Richard Adams' _Watership Down_, both of which feature in-setting creation myths.
Thank you for the recommendations ill be sure to check them out.
I think that it really only depends on the story of the book. If you want to have a story about a character who gradually learns magic throught it, you go with Harry Potter-ish approach. But if you want magic only a lesser part of the world you'd go with the Tolkien-ish approach.
And personally, my favourite magic system comes from the nordic poemats(Voluspá, havámál, and so on). Magic there is only briefly explained and what is magic and what isn't, is up for your interpretation(also, there the word for 'magic' is 'wisdom' and word for 'wisdom' is 'wisdom', so often you don't know what is 'wisdom' and what's 'magic'). What I mean that you can consider Mimir's well magical, but it's not in the magic system more a part of the worldbuilding. The only magic we know was there is the 'Seidr', which was why Odin hung himself on the branches of Yggdrasil, to know seidr. So you can throw everything under seidr, but not everything is ever said to have a link to seidr. That's why I love it, it's for you to interpret.
Also, that's a great video! Keep it up!👍
Nice point of view. Thanks for the well written recommendation I'll have to check out their work some time.
Thank you.
In addition to Soft/Hard (and No, because Fantasy doesn't always mean magic) Magic, I also grade things on Low/High/Sci Fantasy. The Fantasy grade, as you can guess by the inclusion of a Sci(fi) level, I base this on the level of technology a world has, in addition to its magic.
LotR is a Low Fantasy/Soft Magic.
Harry Potter is Low Fantasy/Soft Magic, while FMA would be the Hard Magic counter part to this.
Destiny's Crucible is the reason I include "No Magic" fantasy and also one of the reasons I include Science. This one comes in at Sci Fantasy/No Magic. It's also the only good Western "Isekai" (t/l "another world"), as they're no longer in Kansas, so to speak. In this, someone with modern knowledge is transplanted on to an alien world with the equivalent technology of the 15th-16th century. His knowledge base is limited though, so do not expect anything like the tropes you see in the "nation builder" anime. He's a chemist and not even one of the best.
The last one is Dungeon Crawler Carl. Sci Fantasy/Hard(ish) Magic. There's a lot of scifi in this series, but it blends it with the magic *_system_* really well, with the lines sometimes being crossed. It was the other reason I had to start using the SciFantasy label a little more than I would have to 10 years ago.
This was originally part of that first comment, but it got long in the tooth.
Madoka Magia has been my favourite implementation of a Deal with the Devil magic system. Except, in Madoka, the "Devil", ultimately, doesn't care if _you_ take the deal, because the next person will. It's rarer still, in that Kyubei doesn't recind the offer, despite it being put aside or initially rejected. This allows Madoka to see what kind of Faustian Bargin she would be making and the consequences that it brings.
Another magic system I really enjoyed was from, probably, my favourite anime, Witch Hunter Robin. It drew heavily from old European and early North American witch folklore and the characters powers and abilities were based on the archetype of witch they were. There were the classics, such as fire, water, air and earth; electricity, ice, gravity, vision, memory, birds, bugs, dolls. Unlike Avatar though, the types are organized more like a mix of astrology and Roman gods, but doesn't delve deep enough to fall under "hard magic".
0:54 even tho ridiculous, it can actually be a good logical exercise that can lead to what people find better, what "better" means, and how we categorize the attributes of whats better.
Indeed
I've always liked a magic system where you have have to improve yourself in order to safely use it. Not "Get better at magic" but improve who YOU are by resolving dissonance between what you believe and what is true. Magic that needs YOU to be a better more grounded/enlightened person to use it to a positive effect.
It's a sub division of "Magic is controlled by emotion/will" that has always fascinated me.
There's a magic system that's always been on my mind, the one of Mahouka Koko No Rettosei or translated; The Irregular at Magic High School.
the magic system there its just- Fascinating to me, the way it- Just makes sense, every single spell has a fundation on actual physics and interactions you can understand. How it sets its limits on understandable rules such as physics, chemestry and how it kind of redefines the concept of magic to fit the setting, "mana" its not just some mysterious energy that its everywhere, its explained and even delved on, throwing the normal concept of "mana" and even deleting the name completely (Psions and Pushions), but still retaining the escence of the word even if separated into two.
The way that magic connects with the world, politics, war, evolution of it and the sheer deepth of it all. Love that magic system honestly.
Personally I like to see our world if we gained the law mana I think of it as everyone will gain the ability mana veins in there body animal's will too there very similar to blood veins and everything has a core in there body like a human heart for blood but for mana it's like a sphere and will be colored based on the element
When it comes to magic i have always thought of it as limitless based in understanding everyone kinda. Knows that fire burns and eats oxygen as fuel or part of its fuel so everyone has 100% of all elements and 1000% of one element witch be fire water wind earth light dark lightning void divine and Mana would be seen as some special ability like blood manipulation for example or ice or some ability that has rules of it's own.
Whether Blue is better than Red depends on the circumstances and usage.
I would say the same for Hard vs Soft Magic, different stories and settings have different needs.
In HP wands are used just as a help item like extra wheels on a bike. There is no need to explain how it works withous them cause it works the same, just a bit harder for the magic user and requires more concentration
You gotta read this manga called "Magi - Labyrinth of Magic". Genuinely, the most unique a magical manga can get.
This manga explores the magical themes never explored before. Yeah there is detailed magic system. But why is there magic? Where did it come from? Like how matter is created by atoms, what constitutes a magic? Who made magical dungeons?
All these questions might seem normal, like yeah there must be a random overpowered guy who created magic, distributed it, made dungeons, etc. generic stuff, but Magi is NOT this. There is a vast history on how magic and all the stuff came to be. Manga explores the very roots of magic.
The series even goes on to explore themes about fate, how magic is bound by it, flow of the universe, and more crazy stuff.
Also the manga is great in showing political balance in a magic-based world. Infusion of magic in everyday life. How science fares against magic. What would happen in a war between sorcerers and non-sorcerers. How sorcerers are treated in the world, where majority can't use magic.
I read a bit long ago, a few people have recommended it so prehaps I should start it again.
Thanks for the recommendation and brief description.
Nice considerations!
Thank you.
Given its status as one of the best sold books ever I’d argue the Harry Potter series magic system is the gold standard.
Wait.... I was going to watch it... but that list of "Great magic systems" has really put me off....
It do be like that sometimes
6:49 ngl this is the first time I’ve seen someone reference fgo/ the fate series in a world building video
Yeah it's not to widely seen or mentioned. A shame.
I like the idea of magic being linked to a person's mind, willpower, and desire.
The mind shapes the magic into what you want it to be; imagining the magic you want to cast more vividly and thoroughly results in the magic actually doing what you intend it to as well improving the spell's "fuel efficiency"
Your willpower determines how much fuel you provide to your spell to get its job done, in the case of simply imagining a possible spell but not wanting to cast anything, you of course provide no fuel
And your desire determines how fast you cram the fuel into the magic you're casting, leading to faster casting times and possibly erratic behavior of spells if too fast
Example 1: You want to get up from the couch and grab food from the fridge
1. You imagine pushing yourself up from the couch, standing up, and walking from your current room all the way into the kitchen, navigating to the fridge, opening said fridge, and grabbing a cold slice of leftover pizza (clear imagination of spell)
2. You decide you're going to follow up on your plan and get up, you are determined to do this. (strong willpower)
3. You're really, really, REALLY hungry
Result: You practically leap from the couch to the ground, get in a sprinter pose start dashing towards the kitchen. Despite all your enthusiasm, you accidentally trip over yourself halfway through your current room in your haste. After your fall to the ground you literally bounce back up and continue your sprint while screaming "I FUCKING LOVE COLD PIZZA", bumping into walls and doorways as you navigate through your house at breakneck speeds. Within seconds you arrive at your fridge, rip its heavy metal door open, and proceed to fiercely grip a cold pizza from the lower left shelf and cram it into your gullet.
Example 2: Same scenario
1. You imagine looking for a bite to eat in the fridge (bad imagination of spell)
2. You decide you might as well get food, nothing better to do anyways (meh willpower)
3. You aren't really that hungry (meh desire)
Result: You slowly get up from the couch, start walking towards the kitchen before getting distracted by a heads up penny on the ground. "Oooh, lucky penny", you say while picking the penny up, immediately forgetting what you got up to do. You then proceed to aimlessly walk around your house for a while before you finally remember, "ah, the fridge" and successfully walk over to open it. You browse and mull over your options for a bit before deciding cold pizza suits your current mood best and slowly nibble at it as you focus on other, more pressing matters; like binge watching ATLA for the 17th time.
Have you seen The Magicians show or read the book trilogy? That one had a fascinating magic system built on the idea of subtle hand gestures manipulating the energy source almost like you are weaving a spell with your fingers. The concept took a step beyond when the first major villain grew himself extra fingers specifically to cast more complex spells usually inaccessible to humans.
The other magic system example I'd offer is that of Witch Hat Atelier. Currently only a manga, getting an anime next year. The biggest secret witches keep from others is that anyone can do it. There's a lot of limitations on what can be done that are all based on witch society laws, otherwise, in truth you could do seemingly anything. However casting a spell is an act of drawing. You draw magic circles, the symbols inside dictate information on the effect the circle has. You can even manipulate the size, length, direction and repetition of the symbols to manipulate their effect while the variant of magic ink you use can augment the effect. Because the secret of casting must be kept secret from regular humans, apprentices aren't allowed to cast in public until they are able to draw perfect circles without looking as witches hide the act of drawing behind the cloak they wear.
I have seen a bit of of it. As for witch hat everyone in the comments has recommended it so I've started reading it.
Thanks for taking the time to recommend some awesome content.
Hey I'm just passing by but I saw that you used clips from other shows such as overlord and would like it if you put them somewhere in the description. And good luck on the world building ❤
Thanks for the suggestion, I should probably have done a bit more detailed description instead of just adding the main shows.
Good presentation of valuable information! Subscribed.
Thxs and Welcome aboard!
A magic system I've been working on/off has 13 Attributes, 10 Aspects, 0-9 Tiers of Scaling, and the central Anchor for a Spell Circle that determines the overall function of a Skill/Spell.
The intent of the magic system is to allow the creation of a vast variety of customized spells for each Practitioner, but to also be as balanced as possible by making all forms of Magic follow the same exact rules set.
Sadly motivation is a weak point of mine, otherwise I'd be much further on.
Sounds complex but awesome. No Motivation is the enemy of us all XD.
The faces though simple work really well, think of it as adventure time almost. Also, awesome magic system,
Thank you. Gald to here that. I was aiming for it to be similar to adventure time
I have a bunch of magic systems that I like: Alchemy from the Atelier Series, blastia from Tales of Vesperia, Materia from FF7, and the charms from Hollow Knight.
Why, yes, I do like external magic more than genetic magic.
Awesome references
I have a few personal Loves with magic. My biggest one is with the separation of magic from self, something me and my group refer to as Artifice. The user is about as inert as a rock, but with careful and methodical tool use, The limits are only the gear and the user's knowledge how to use it effectively. In short it is a more fantastical analog to Electricity in this state. Runestones charged with magic, invoked together to cause magic, A wand hooked up to a backpack filled with liquid mana to create a flamethrower, Using your skills create Miniture Automatons to help you with your tasks. Truely the sky is the limit
the runner up for me is Voice. Eragon or Skyrim for example, Words that uttering cause real things to happen. Eragon overshot this magic and it felt DBZ ish at one point, Skyrim undershot it with its mechanics,
The last category Is more of a personal one. What if wizards all had a Different UI for how they interacted with magic? Say for example, Mozart, What if he interacted with magic through music? He could see the strands of power in the form of Notes and by creating such grand scripts of music He could cast spells that last forever. The tragedy is then revealed that those that witnessed the magic only experienced half of it. They only heard the music, they did not see Play invoked by the sound. Those sensitive enough may catch glimpses of his intent in their minds, but not to the degree he wanted. His work would be remembered forever, even if the full extent of the spell was lost.
That is just off the top of my head but it is my jam
These are some really nice points, thank you for the insightful comment
I think your own project is very good, but as you said the character designs are slightly lacking, I believe this is due to wanting realistic proportions with not so realistic faces, I think it might be good to do away with the realistic proportions and exaggerate a bit, it might be helpful to look at similar successful styles (not that you don't know this because you probably do), but I think Osama King's Ranking and Friren has an artstyle similar to yours but different in meaningful ways it might be good to take from them
Thanks for the advice, appreciate your feedback.
I'll throw my chip in, why not. My world has a magic system that changes you as it goes, but only according to your true self. You secretly a selfish dude? Well, you may gain the powers of a Runecarver, but with enough power you may turn to darker and darker magics until your spells can only be cast using fresh human blood. This way stepping into the magical world is an existential threat if you don't properly check yourself and make an attempt to be a genuine and kind person (and even then, genuine and kind people can always be corrupted). Sort of complicated but the magic is so interwoven with the world that it's mechanics are the only reason the world can breathe, and thus make it a mystery to unravel and understand.
In other words, fancy magic match u and make u more u, but not always good u if bad u is more
Really like the idea, I enjoy it when the magic is connected to character traits.
Good luck with the rest of your world
Check out Witch Hat Atelier. Fantastic art, characters and the magic system is very intricate. It has alot of DONTS which at first seem kind of tyrannical by the "regulators of magic" in that universe but as the story progresses it really does make you ponder if the tyranny and the absolutism of whats forbidden come from a necessary place.
It doesnt have an anime yet but its just a matter of time. That said, I would really really recommend reading the manga. The art is sublime.
cool vid
Thank you. Yip after all the recommendations I've started reading it
Thank you sir. You have helped me a great deal. I am your newest subscriber
Thank you, always happy to help.
@@CreoSolus I've written more than ever and my story and it's magic is developing so well. Bc of your advice to tie it to everything from day to day improvement to politics
I like the designs of your characters, they look really cool. I like stories that use cosmic/space-like magic, so magic for Destiny or warframe.
Thank you, man destiny and warfare are awesome examples of fantastic world building.
Reading Suprem magnus a web novel that has a cool magic system and world basic elements magic science mix magic tech and balancing many races with advantages and disadvantages humans around low physical strength but all elements beasts undead many other unique although there is some flaws mainly with the main character being very power fantasy esq but still writan pretty well
Thanks for the recommendation
The actual reason you use wands is so that if you miscast you do not destroy your hand.
That would be horrific
Naruto have interesting magic system imo, tho it gets overshadowed by everything else. Atlast earlier Naruto, by the point it gets to the world war its all out of whack
atlast i got inspired by that one when thinking up my magic system
Unfortunately i haven't watched naruto.
Imagine creating a powerful magic computer by stacking billions and billions of magic circles and programming it with runes
Interesting concept,
if you think about it cpu's are made from magic rocks(silicon wafers) and have strange rune carvings on them (light edging) and are powered by lightening (electricity).
Pretty magical if you ask me.
I like when magic maintains a level of awe and mystery, but I don’t like it when it becomes a superpower. I also don’t like the concept of magitech as at that point it’s just science and no longer magic. My one exception is Final Fantasy 14 because I love that game.
I tend to agree with magi tech being keep for science fiction
I would say that allomancy, Feruchemy from the Mistborn Saga are great magic systems or Dor from Elantris
Thxs for the recommendations, a few people have also suggested them.
"is to say blue is better than red, I cannot imagine a more senseless topic"
Sounds something a bluey would say..
XD
Learn about Xianxia and Cultivation and become disappointed in all other systems.
I've got to check them out then, thank you
I would recommend Dorohedoro for a unique story with magic unless you have a problem with gore as it is a really bloody and violent story.
I've seen a bit of it, I should pick it up again
The funny thing about Harry Potter magic system is that it is a hard system, but the author expend so little time writing about it that it feels a soft system. There is a stamina thing going on in that system, Harry grow incredible tired of trying to cast patronum, and Albus got tired killing inferis, buy that was basically all times it happened. Wands are not necessary to cast magic, but it made it far more easier, so occidental wizards need their wands to cast magic, because they don´t train in cast magic with out them, but african wizards don´t use wands. There is also talent, there are people without the talent, people with little talent and real monsters like Albus or Voldemort. There is also knowledge, and dedication. Most of the wizards in that world use their talents to mundane task, few look for battle power and deadly abilities.
Thanks for the extra info much appreciated. I like the world of HP but man there are some flaws with the story and world building.
hold on, in the intro is that bill cypher, and a ghost (its a robot not an actual ghost) from destiny 2?
Right you are.
Does anyone knows what is the show at 6:46? I'll have to watch that full scene as it looks pretty good :D
Fate grand order movie.
i think you should check out lord of the mysteries power system its so complex and good.
Will do
one of, if not the best magic system I have ever seen is from the light novel supreme magus, one of the most famous light novels. It is so incredibly interesting because to give you a quick run-down of what it is about: it is basically an isekai, but done in a really cool way. The main character Lith (his reincarnated name) is born into the world as a baby and finds out that magic exists in the world, but because he's from a poor family he knows absolutely nothing about magic and it's secrets. Even the books about magic are simply too expensive for him at the start. So he straight up has to discover everything on his own and experiment with different ideas. It is really comparable to mushoku tensei at the start. So if you liked the start of mushoku tensei you will love the start of this novel (first 72 chapters im pretty sure)
Also not even mentioning the amazing magic system, the characters are all really well-made (yurial the goat). Try reading the description of it, if it sounds interesting you can give it a go.
Interesting, I'll check it out. Thank you
So two related things worth considering is how many magical abilities does any given practitioner posses and what are ranges of what any one power can do? For instance in something like DnD a wizard might know a hundred or more spells but each of those spells does one very specific thing with power being the only varying factor (either caster level or using higher level spell slots depending on the edition), now take a sorcerer who might only have twenty toe thirty spells but would have a greater range on exactly what each one could do. Alternatively if you look at a lot of the Xanxia/Xanxia adjacent/LitRPG, you can see full practitioners with as few as 2 very flexible powers up to something like 25 powers being actually useful in combat with some more being of use in some very niche situations. I would put something like FMA very clearly at one corner of this with everyone technically only having one incredibly flexible power, with something DnD on the other end where there are hundreds of incredibly rigid spells to choose from.
Good point, seeing it like a skill tree. Comparing branching out or maxing out a specific set of skiils
@@CreoSolus not exactly you also have thing's like say x-men where everyone has one power, and while it may get slightly stronger through training and they can certainly learn to use it in slightly different ways the power it's self does one thing. You can also have bunches of powers and have them all be super flexible with training but that get's much much harder to make interesting because then anyone can do anything wheeeee! which makes it both for bad games and hard to make interesting in fiction most of the time. Though having that DnD wizard but going with one of the current sub-classes (scribe's wizard) to let them specifically modify the spell's damage type comes close to that by giving them a narrow way in which they can modify any of there plethora of abilities.
The Percy Jackson movies are awful. The new series is a bit better tho
Awful is an understatement XD,
can you look at shadow slave's magic system and power system ?
I'm not familiar with it but ill check it out thanks.
My question would be for the anime/manga of freiren, would that be hard or soft magic??? Its system has the rule of anything that can be done based on your imagination....but imagination is limitless, and so depends on the person. There could be no cap. But there is a set rule. So im lost on that xD
That's when the soft or hard breaks down as freirren is both. The method of mana is hard however the limitless amount of spells, leans more towards soft.
I wouldn't be able to put into one category. Sorry.
Honestly with my most honest opinion my favorite interpretation of magic is the magic system from the manwha called infinite mage
Sadly I'm not familiar with it. I'll have to read it sometime.
"System magic" the kind you see in manwha are my kryptonite. Is it overdone? Yes. Will I read every one that I see come out.... guilty.
Guilty pleasure, XD
I have an idea for a kind of magepunk style world, with extremely high magic which is very accessible (low floor high ceiling) but I’m struggling with how much the reader needs to understand about the magic system. Obviously I’ll know how everything works, but I think the hyper-stylization punk brings to a world will allow for a crazy fun and cool system.
Getting that balance right is tricky
Sympathetic crafting magic is a cool idea to me: sewing symbols into clothes to imbue those garmits with the properties represented by the symbol or material of the thread for instance, or Book Binding, the Grimoire can be used to cast spells because you have literally BOUND discrete phenomena between the pages of the book during it’s creation and with the right words you can open the book up and call them out again
That is truely awesome. Love this idea.
If you ask me the best magic systems are the ones that are both clear and concise and understandable with rules as to how they work but was interesting and underlying Mysteries that still come from how deep the abyss of the knowledge that can be learned from the magic system is and how that massive Gap in what is shown and what we know there is more to learn about the magic system being what is the true magic namely being knowing that there's so much more to learn but it's so incomprehensible because it doesn't necessarily make sense to our common human senses or inferences about how the world is supposed to work and to come across someone who has seen those depths and understood them is what makes them so amazing and more importantly both mystical and mysterious but also terrifying as you don't know what they know beyond what you could ever imagine.
Well said. Thank you for this great addition.
idk, my favorite magic system would be something like Black Clover, even if I'm not the biggest fan of the franchise. What I like about it is that everyone gets predetermined mana reserves, that are used to cast magic (they probably refill after the character rests for a while) and their magic control (even if you know the strongest spells and have vast amount of mana, your magic can fail/miss the target). The part that I like the most is growth, character can learn new spells (they are limited to their attribute) and improve their already existing ones by increasing power output and control itself. There are also some character that have abilities that bend the rules (like anti-magic or time-space slash), which I find really cool, but I don't really like the delivery and power scaling of said characters, but it's not a big minus for me.
Bleach's system I also find pretty cool. Even if you have instant-death ability, it wouldn't work on an enemy that has more spiritual pressure (read: power level) than you (I'm pretty sure this only works if difference in power is very big, not if you are close in terms of spiritual power). I'm not really fan of weak character with niche abilities, so this aspects takes them out of the picture when fighting a major villain.
I haven't had the chance to watch it unfortunately
My whole book is about different magic systems kind of in one world, and personally I think building magic systems is amazing and important to a story, but it's also interesting how you could make different magic systems interact, and what exactly would happen when 2 users of different magics try to create a spell together.
I never thought of having 2 systems simultaneously. Thats got to be tricky to manage.
Best of luck with your story.
@@CreoSolus more of 10- but yeah-
A few books I've read recently with really amazing magic systems!
The Dead Take The A Train: The main character stiches spells into her skin and hurts herself to use magic, ripping muscles and fat out of her body for powerful spells
The UnWanteds: Component based magic that requires signs and words to cast spells
The Alchemist (Stories of Nicholas Flemmel): The energy in your body [nutrients and what not] are used for spells and fit into elemental archetypes
Renegades Trilogy: Prodigies have specific powers granted to them based off of life experiences
Thanks for the recommendations, The dead take the A train. Sounds amazing. Magic with brutal consequences. Sign me up.
Favorite Magic system is from Lord of the Mysteries
A few people have also recommended it so it must be good
Question: May I use the word Ramus, in the context you've put it. It something I'm working on I use the word mana, but it feels so over used these days that it just feels off putting. but the word Ramus has an interesting feel to it.
u need way more appreciation. love ur vids
Thanks for the words of encouragement.
I try to write my on fantasy story havely inspired by Bleach and medival times.
My magic system is quite uniqe - as I never heard about smilar one but maybe I wrong.
That you need crystal to use magic is they are diffrent crystal given you smiple spells for basci elements.
You can't just use crystals they only works as part of tool/waepon - you have to make action with item with crystal to cast spell.
And you can combine one type crystals with other types crystal to get diffrent spells.
Wouldn’t say Disney brought us Rogue One and Andor 😂 those two were less meddled with by Disney 😂😂
lol
I'll take the smallest win with Disney star wars. XD