Sword and sorcery tabletop RPG which includes a long, rambling list of magic spells with weirdly specific affects and annoyingly particular casting requirements, kind of like if Dungeons & Dragons decided to be about 40% more precious about its magic system, except it's a group worldbuilding game, and one of the first steps is for the group to collectively choose exactly seven of those spells to be the only ones anyone still knows how to cast. All of the spells that didn't get picked might be spoken of in legend, but the knowledge of them has been lost over time. The remainder of the group worldbuilding phase consists principally of brainstorming what a society built around these seven annoyingly specific spells would look like; for example, perhaps the knowledge of their working is jealously guarded, with each of the setting's great nations constructing their entire cultural identity around Their Spell, or perhaps the setting's industrial base is dependent on combining these spells in increasingly unintended ways to form a sort of sorcerous Rube Goldberg machine of production.

(One of the default campaign premises for this hypothetical game would, of course, cast the player characters as a gang of mercenary scholars on a quest to rediscover an eighth spell. Depending on what sort of setting the group initially brainstormed, keeping their intentions under wraps may be strongly advisable.)

Now I'm going to be spending an unhealthy amount of time thinking about a rich guy who just REALLY wants to cast like Barkskin because he's just really into the idea of being a fucked up tree and hiring a bunch of fuckos to figure out how to do it because he's read about it in some old books or some shit

That's the spirit.

A world where one of the Seven Spells is Stone to Flesh. It's said this was once used to break a terrible curse, but nobody now remembers if there was ever truly a way to turn the living into statues; scholars confidently assert that this is a just-so story invented by the credulous to explain the origins of a staple part of society, since the spell's purpose is so obviously to provide food in abundance.

Still, nobody quite trusts a sculptor whose work seems too lifelike.

i have a lot of complaints about Gladstone's "Craft Sequence" but putting a fantasy story in a modern setting by making it an alternate history where magic is normal was good and important. Whenever people put fantasy in a modern setting, it always seems to become about the "masquerade", the secrecy and the means by which this is kept from the public. Or, not "about", but.... it makes the whole thing seem unimportant, like all magic does is protect from magic threats, which undermines the premise that discovering the world of magic is so fascinating, and that relatable protagonists follow the thread of the supernatural unlike the unrelatable incurious people.

also, if you don't set the story in a world where scientific naturalism doesn't exist, i can't help but feel like the msot important thing happening in the story is the disproof of scientific naturalism!

I like htat in Gunnerkrigg Court it mentioned that the Randi Prize has already been collected. Well, I don't think it specifically mentioned Randi, but... ah, the "Eugene Gould psychic challenge".

Yeah, all my old daydream scenarios with hidden vampires and werewolves etc ran hard into “but why don’t magic users just take advantage of everybody else?”

I wound up making their immediate recent history being of superpredators/old boy’s club taking up almost all the magical resources, everybody being super horrible and way too busy to spend any time in the regular world. No time to do much in person because the distraction would leave them open to attack by a rival. Thus an overall absence from regular history. Coz they all dragged each other down into the shadow realm, and then stayed there where it was possible to magic up e.g. weapons and clothing and evil puzzle palaces. Inasmuch as this left the story with any stakes, I’d generally go “and THEN the whole rest of the magical ecosystem eventually went killer whale on their shark asses and wiped all the magicians out worldwide; the new crop of magical people find themselves growing aware of a strange, emptied landscape of established societies of very annoyed magical creatures and rare survivors that view them as being on thin fucking ice.” So the new situation is one where magic IS likely to become mainstream again, after an extended absence caused by the extermination event being in progress. Which broke the cultural chain of powerful magicians driving each other turbo insane. But also removed them as keystone predators that had been keeping the shadow realm or whatever mostly barren and cut back away from normal reality.

so like… the previous magic culture was creating the scenario that annoys you to read (what is the point of these people if they’re totally divorced from reality?). They were stopped by an external force that has set new rules of specifically human non-violence, which has allowed way more human magic users to survive and use magic freely. But now there’s both TikTok AND the violence prohibition, which means all sorts of grifts and scams targeting normal people are totally possible, so long as they don’t get blood on your soul or whatever which marks you as “To whom it may concern: URGENT: to be eaten by the Fae.”

worldwide stuff never really works because of everybody having such different traditions, but pretty much every culture agrees that there are evil spirits like for sure definitely, so that’s what would be broadly speaking Evil Magician Influence. Then that tapers off and vanishes right before “modernity” during the time period all the evil wizards (…humans in general) are being beaten out of the shadow-world-rug, so there isn’t any magic to rly find even if you look. Or if you do look, you find someone who died in a weird accident, or an object that vanished or doesn’t do anything you can figure out bcs you’re normal. And then only juuuust recently are totally naive people coming into powers, without any evil wizard examples for how to amplify or concentrate them.

otherwise yeah the whole Masquerade thing just, it is so tiresome to me as well. Who cares. Tell ppl about the magic!! Teleport your Lyft/Uber past traffic! Curse the person sending you anon hate! Dowse for radium! Like for gods’ sake.

I do also like having complete invulnerability to magic be a fun aspect of normal people though, like if you can manage a kinetic field strong enough to get them out of Real to begin with they can just walk right into the hearts of crazy spells and curses and adjust the focus elements like it’s nothing, when magic users would be fried. So you could be a normie magical technician! Or detective, or bodyguard, or etc., so long as someone handles the accessibility issue of getting you places you can actually exist (and not stranding you there or smearing you into a fine paste on the way out).

Some of my favorite approaches to this:

In a similar vein to all this, I REALLY like that idea of Fae as a downward pressure on mages mbl mentions :3 :3 Like: yes they're a huge danger to mortals all on their own but that's just what they ARE you can't blame them for that, and in their defense watching what the humans they taught magic to did with it was SUPER FUNNY, and also tbh they didn't really understand how this whole "Death" thing worked until one of you FINALLY took the time to sit us down and EXPLAIN IT my GOSH how AWFUL(or the mortal mages just happen to knock over their proverbial coca cola and it suddenly becomes Our Problem), and then they go ham on the mages showing them what REAL Magic looks like, and after that they're Real Squirrelly about any other humans who start fiddling with their toys >:3 >:3 >:3

Midnight Pals: Magic Systems

[at Unicorn Fuck Club] Brandon Sanderson: hey robert what kind of magic rules do you have Sanderson: in my fantasy world, there's 18 laws of magic Sanderson: sorted into 23 categories and 65 sub-directories Robert Jordan: huh Jordan: well in my world, girls do girl magic and boys do boy magic

Sanderson: wait what? Jordan: girls do girl magic and boys do boy magic Sanderson: how does that work Jordan: saidin is stored in the balls

Jordan: why, how does your magic work Sanderson: ah well if you experience an emotion in my fantasy world Sanderson: then a sprite representing that emotion with physically appear and dance around Jordan: is that like Big Mouth then Sanderson: what Jordan: its a cartoon show Sanderson:

Sanderson: oh idk maybe Sanderson: i haven't seen it Sanderson: i only watch saturday's warrior on loop Jordan: look, i just think it makes sense Jordan: that the fundamental mystery powers of the universe would bisect neatly along binary gender lines JK Rowling: goddamnit!!! Rowling: why didn't i think of that

Rowling: ugh, inssstead i only have magic dividing people into uebermensssches and untermensssches Rowling: it could have been sssso much more!

Rowling: sssso in my world Rowling: the sssuperior wizard raccce issss sssimply born knowing magic Sanderson: right, right Rowling: then they have to go to sssschool Rowling: you know, to learn Rowling: Rowling: magic Rowling: alssso there are bad wizardsss who want to exterminate non-wizardssss Rowling: the bad wizardsss represssent queer people now Rowling: that's why we need to get them before they get us Rowling: anyway if you're an elected repressentative writing eliminationalisssst lawsss, feel free to reference my fictional booksss for jussstification Tolkien: Martin: Rowling: i don't get it, that alwaysss getsss a big hand on mumsnet Diane Duane: in my world, anyone can learn magic Rowling: SHUT UP DUANE Duane: from a book Rowling: SHUT UP Duane: you can get it at the library John Bellairs: oh yeah i think i've seen that book

:)

Imo the most striking and unique element of the Locked Tomb’s magic system is that it’s unapologetically disgusting.

Free worldbuilding idea:

Wizards have the same trust in magic that software designers have in software, which is to say, almost none at all.

“Are you fucking kidding me I worked in a reagrent shop for a few years I don’t trust any of that stuff. Who the hell knows what other components are in the ashes.”

“Yeah I was in the circle that made Alston’s Divine Circle of Teleportation. There’s some pretty nasty corner cases you can get into but the headmaster published it without us. I just take ships. It’s way safer.”

“I call bullshit on that Necromancer channeling spirits of loved ones. What did he say he was using? ‘Medium Conduit Ruinic Circles’? That’s just a bunch of buzzwords slapped together, and they don’t even interact with each other.”

“I’ve been looking at this scroll all morning and I’m 90% sure that the scribe didn’t even look at the standard for pyromancies.”

“Help Desk, this is Gloriline, what did you fuck up this time?” *indistinct vocals* “Dave, I’ve seen the news, and, frankly, I can see the ash cloud from here. You paid for extended support, not enabling support.”

“I can’t get this fucking spell to work, Jane, can you look it?”

*passes a scroll* *a few moments of silence*

“I think you missed a bookend rune right here-”

“GODS DAMN IT! IT’S ALWAYS SHIT LIKE THAT! THANK YOU!” *angrily scribbles on parchment*

(It takes five more aggravatingly tiny adjustments before the spell works)

I don’t play wizards anymore because they’re too much like my day job.

Instead of a orb the wizard has a little statue of a duck he tells his spells to and then swears when he spots the obvious mistake.

You beat me to it! I was going to add that the reason why wizards and witches always have familiars around is so they can Rubber Duck at them until they realize what the mistake with their spell is!

Outsiders get it wrong and figure the familiars are somehow teaching spells to their owners, but no. It’s just explaining to Firewing what you’re trying to do with this teleportation matrix until you realize that you’ve been using telepathy crystals to power it the whole time like a FUCKING IDIOT!

@dmplz

Glorine (on her last hour of a long shift) “Look zir, in your realm, magic is based on available local mana, right? You knew that when you signed up.

“I can see from our call log that we have told you this before, but if you don’t end your statements properly, the recursive loop is just going to keep calling on the magic endlessly, and will wipe all available mana from the locale. Did you readLarry Niven’s warning pamphlet “The Magic Goes Away” as we advised?

“Honestly zir, this is why you should beta test your spells in a development reality first!”

fantasy book with witches and wizards and magical people but all magic has a price, like

main character, in awe and slightly terrified: what did you have to give up to be able to control storms with your mind?

powerful enchanter, fighting back tears as they pull down the hood of their cloak to reveal a knotted oily mess: my beautiful luscious hair….no matter how many times i wash or brush it, it always looks like this

main character: [horrified gasp]

fortune teller: and speak up when asking your question, these are my cards so they share my partially-deafness

other character, sympathetically: oh, had to trade good hearing for seeing the future?

fortune teller: no, asshole, i was born with it. i got seeing the future for trading in my ability to wink

there’s a legend in this fantasy land about a powerful enchanter who traded their ovaries for the power to create earthquakes. the grumpy semi-sentient force of nature who negotiates these magic deals had thought it was pretty great one, sure to make the recipient of the deal regret making it soon enough (after all, the point is having to suffer a bit in exchange for magic, because life sucks even in magical fantasy kingdoms)

however, soon afterwards, the Grumpy Semi-Sentient Force of Nature realized the enchanter had been ecstatic to be rid of periods and didn’t care about not having biological children. the GSSFN felt somewhat cheated by this and ever since has had a strict no-trading-internal-organs policy

“fucking humans messing with the system,” it was quoted as saying

actually, cheating the Grumpy Semi-Sentient Force of Nature out of the suffering it hopes to inflict with the magic deals is a time honored tradition in Magical Fantasy Kingdom, which is primarily made up of sassy little shits. most of the kingdom’s mythology is made up of trickster figures

there’s the legend of the smooth-talking thief who managed, by describing a certain talent of hers as “the ability to form small growths out of her skin and then reabsorb them” with enough quick confusing descriptions to trade the ability to get pimples for the power to become invisible

there’s the boy who brought the GSSFN a bucketful of cold, liquid silver in exchange for the power to cure a certain sickness, only for the GSSFN to realize once the sun had come up that the bucket contained only water reflecting moonlight

there’s the monarch who offered to trade in their power to destroy people with only their words for the seemingly much less valuable power to turn one grain of rice into two grains — only for the GSSFN to realize later it had gotten the ruler’s cutting sarcasm in payment for a power that could end a famine

every year the Grumpy Semi-Sentient Force of Nature gets visits from tens of jewish witches and wizards solemnly offering to give up eating all foods that come from pigs or eating meat at the same time as dairy in exchange for the powers they want

“DO YOU THINK YOU’RE FUCKING CLEVER” says the GSSFN, who has frankly had enough of this shit

Free worldbuilding idea:

Wizards have the same trust in magic that software designers have in software, which is to say, almost none at all.

“Are you fucking kidding me I worked in a reagrent shop for a few years I don’t trust any of that stuff. Who the hell knows what other components are in the ashes.”

“Yeah I was in the circle that made Alston’s Divine Circle of Teleportation. There’s some pretty nasty corner cases you can get into but the headmaster published it without us. I just take ships. It’s way safer.”

“I call bullshit on that Necromancer channeling spirits of loved ones. What did he say he was using? ‘Medium Conduit Ruinic Circles’? That’s just a bunch of buzzwords slapped together, and they don’t even interact with each other.”

“I’ve been looking at this scroll all morning and I’m 90% sure that the scribe didn’t even look at the standard for pyromancies.”

“Help Desk, this is Gloriline, what did you fuck up this time?” *indistinct vocals* “Dave, I’ve seen the news, and, frankly, I can see the ash cloud from here. You paid for extended support, not enabling support.”

Hot take:

Futuristic fantasy stories that DON’T quantify and rationalize magic to some measurable degree (midichlorians, aura, power levels) are actually Badly Written because, and hear me out: people quantify everything. Calories, acidity, solubility, decibels, milliliters, the Scoville scale tells you how hot a pepper is. Ancient fantasies, myths, and post-apocalyptic stories can get away with vague rules because they don’t know how to close an electrical circuit so they can light a room, let alone measure radiation wavelength. If you want me to buy that your civilization has been practicing magic for ten thousand years in a flourishing empire with magic academies, there had better be a thermometer they can stick in your mouth to see how many magic points you are putting out right now.