To begin the world building questions, let us first examine the rules of magia in detail. Some of these answers may sound familiar if you've read my early notes.
1. What things can magic not do? What are the limits of magical power?
Magia can do a great many things, but there are a few things it cannot do:
--Bring the dead back to life (unless the Seer found the person was still needed on the mortal plane.)
--It cannot be used for evil purposes against another being (so no casting a status effect on a being unless you are in danger or the target is an evil being)
--It shouldn't be used to manipulate the weather or to travel through time
The limits of magia I have touched on before, but let's review them:
--You can only wield so many elements safely (three for humans, dwarves, and avris; and six for elves and fairies) Only one being can safely wield all twelve elements--the Gemsinger. If you were to try and wield an elemental you couldn't wield, one of two things would happen: the spell would misfire or not work at all or it would drain your energy even faster than normal.
--Magia is a very concentrated form of energy, so it usually needs to be channeled through something (typically an instrument, but this can also be a weapon or another object) to bring the energy level down to a level safe enough to be controlled. That said, it is possible to wield magia through one's voice, but it would tire the wielder out faster because they would have pure magia flowing through them, and most being's bodies cannot handle the energy of pure magia.
--Every time you cast a spell, you expend some of your own energy. The rate this happens depends on how long the user's been wielding magia (so a new mage's apprentice would tire very quickly, while a wizard that has wielded magia for years would need to cast spells constantly for several hours before the first signs of magia fatigue set in). Although you cannot die from using magia, you CAN exhaust yourself to the point where you could die. Fortunately, resting for a little while will recharge your energy. Physical fatigue and magia fatigue, however, are not the same thing.
Tomorrow: Miracles and magia
This is deeply bothersome. Your rules on how magic is executed seem more like a moral guideline to their usage than an actual set of rules for the use of this 'magia'. While we're at it, by the way, I question your need to rename the word 'magic'. There's really no point unless you feel like indicating a substantial way in which it is different from what we associate as being 'magical', and even then, you replaced it with a word that sounds almost exactly the same. The -ia ending doesn't make it better. It makes it trite. Don't do things you don't need to do. Your readers will be English-literate, and there is no need, for example, to call a cow a vahsahnya'lek'ok if you could just call it a cow and cut out a flip to the appendix.
ReplyDelete....Back on topic, you have magic capable of physically tiring out a human being. You describe it as a power that is channeled, therefore you imply that the act of holding yourself together while you channel it causes strain to the human body. Why, then, is it impossible for using magic to kill the user? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I picture what you've described like this.
There's a water tower-- that's magic, it comes from the stones or whatever-- and then there's a garden hose coming out of the bottom of the reservoir-- that's the mage. Obviously, if you just let the water from the reservoir force itself through a garden hose, it'd burst-- that'd be death. But if you channel it through something, like a metal tappet to reduce the pressure-- that'd be an item-- you can use it.
By that logic, it is completely possible to die from using magic. In fact, you'd probably explode.
My next issue is that you claim that you can't kill anyone with it (evil purposes), followed by the caveat that you can, actually, if its justified. At this point, we're drifting away from the fundamental rules of magic in your world to social mores.
You describe magic as concentrated energy. Energy has no morality, fire doesn't /choose/ to burn one person but not another. A laser beam won't cool one thing and fry the next. Energy is /used/ and /how/ it is used-- by its user-- gives it a good or evil purpose. I'd recommend removing that rule entirely.
Now onto the last problem I have time to explain to you-- that it can't be used to alter the weather or mess around with time. Messing around with time I understand-- that makes sense. It's something we can't do now, after all. But changing the weather? We can change weather right now, as ordinary human beings. And in your world, one of the fundamental elements is 'fire'. Lets say its a rainy day. I create a fireball the size of a small city in the sky, burning away all the clouds. Well, I just changed the weather, didn't I?
These are things you should think about if you want a consistent and believable world.
You do bring up valid points--points others have told me about as well, and as I've written in my world, I've realized that a lot of what I initially wrote down can't or isn't going to work, for reasons you describe.
ReplyDeleteBut now that I look at this again, I need to clarify some things