How Do You Do Magic?

As a reader, any magic concept is fine with me.

As an author... I had the hardest time firming up details for my magic system because I was already 30k or so words in to my story before I realized how crucial some of the information about the system was going to be I’ve tried to write magic in such a way that it’s understood that there’s specifics, but it’s also rather vague. So, there’s glowing and runes, and technically spells, but its never explicitly spelled out. There’s different categories of magic, slightly reminiscent of elements, but broken into different categories. I’m a fan of soft magic, if you couldn’t tell, and only wrote down most of this info to make part of the plot make sense otherwise it would all be “and there was some magic - and magic is magic, so no explanations needed!” LOL

My story has a bunch of magic systems, depending on what circle you follow. Most of my characters are alchemists but I got some that get animal powers, I got others that bend physics to their will...I wanted to try and do a rock-paper-scissors with magic systems, so that although there are a lot of them, none of them are so powerful as to be able to take over the earth or something. They have a lot of weaknesses and in-fighting between circles cancel eachother out.

As for how I show it, I keep it fairly abstract in the book--where you can see the end result, but I don't have people chanting phrases (that was always corny to me), instead you hear sounds of them shuffling through their alchemy equipment, or you see the damage they do when they've achieved some animal strength.

As for the comic I made of the same story--it was entirely black and white, but when we discussed or showed magic I used the color red.

Inner-magic-within concept. Popularized by shounen mangas, which inspired by ancient/ new age knowledge such as Chi/Ki, 7 Chakras etc. I still like them the most, maybe because I was born around battle shounen mangas.

My magic system is like a very simplified version of Naruto's + Hunter x Hunter's magic system, it only contains 3 elements. I'm not gonna make to so technical like the mangas did though.

I portray it sometimes kind of generically with seals and magic spells.

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But in a very specific comic of mine that's more a psychological horror than a fantasy comic, there's vague hints magic is going on such as a castle my character Yuna lived in becoming cracked and old when it was once new and pristine. I made it subtle to make viewers question her sanity or if there was some sort of magic at play.

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I'm still ironing out the kinks of my magic systems, so a lot of things are subject to change, but for the main magic system in my story: magic comes from the stars, generated as mana and channeled by the magician through a "medium", traditionally though magic staffs but usually wands, however anything can be used as a medium (a character uses a sword, another uses tarot cards, which take on the appearance of playing cards in their world). As a result, everyone kind of has a different way of doing it, but the result is usually a glow/aura around said medium called... well, an "Aura". The shapes and colors are dependent on the user and their personality, for example, one of my characters, Jupiter, his Aura color is red and takes the shape of something that looks like lightning, while his brother's is more of a calmer, regal, blue aura. I wish I had photos to describe this part better, but I still don't.

In the REALLY old days they used to use runes, but that's spoilery and I'm keeping it under tight wraps so I'm not talking about it, lol.

Other magic systems in the story work like:

• one magic system that only works if you use something, for example, picking up a flower from the ground requires you to use a bit of mana to heal the flower, which means that the magic is really only effective for healing.

• Another is centered on illusions. You can only change the appearance of yourself and not the surroundings around you, and mana is generated from the user themselves.

Magic in Space Pirate is fairly loose right now as far as abilities go. There are 4 elements and everyone is born with a natural tie to an element. But only certain people are actually able to actually use magic to manipulate the elements - which in this case, is really the energy and matter of the universe. These people are scouted out to become high ranked military officers. Some people over time gain the ability to tap into another element and are able to combine the two to form a new element. Your normie class of character has to tap into their life-force to use their magic. While some underwent training to "expand" their available life-force and to become more efficient with it, they still will eventually exhaust and even kill themselves. As opposed to space pirates, who in this universe, have a natural "reserve" pool that they can tap into before tapping into life-force. They can burn an absurd amount of fuel before they even begin to show signs of fatigue. It's inspired by a couple of magic systems. Naruto, Dragonball and Star Wars in particular.

As a reader, I don't honestly have a preference for how the magic is used by a character. I care more about the overall story then I do about something like that.

As a writer, I try to mix it up but for the most part my magic is usually instinct based. A character is born with a certain ability and they can just use that ability, but they do need training to truly control it. I've had magic in my Celestial Children Trilogy where it becomes like a second metabolism to a character and will literally eat at their body if they don't balance using it vs not using it. They have a dominate magic, one they can use easily with little damage to their bodies, but then an opposite magic that could kill them if they used it too much. Most of it was elemental based so like Wind magic users could be killed by doing earth magic, that kind of thing.

In my book Draygon Frost I have both natural magic and totem magic. Natural magic is where the character is born with a certain ability. The MC has ice magic, there's shifters that are born with the magic to shift into specific animals, but then the various magics can in turn be infused into totems to allow non-magic users to use it. So there's a changeling potion that can change their appearance to anything, ice totems that can be used to refrigerate food or just generate ice, fire totems keep things warm or light things on fire. A seduction totem will seduce a character and so on (my totems are kinda an uh duh with their names LOL Naming has never been my strong suit). Then there's something called a crystillium flower that will actually poison a magic user and stop them from being able to use their magic and I have a bracelet that turns the magic user into a mindless being that obeys the command of the person who controls that bracelet.

If I ever get back to writing it I'll have another book where there will be amulets that allow for magic use. I haven't worked out all the details to that "science" since I haven't written the book yet, but the idea is going to be that there is a certain race or blood line that can use these amulets. To anyone who doesn't have that connection (whatever I decide on it being) the amulet is otherwise useless. That one is going to be fun to explore for me because it's going to be all dependent on the amulet and what it can do as to what magic a person can do.

Magic in SARGENTUM1 is roughly classed into levels!
My comic takes place in a pseudo-historical fantasy Britain, and I've drawn in real world folklore and folk magic.
Most magic is seen as kinda picking apart and 'reweaving' the strings of reality, and it can be done in several ways!

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1) The Goodwife, or Common Practioner, performs basic domestic folk magic - it's pretty common and achived in the same kind of way as spells in historical sources. It's about sort of 'hacking' the weave of reality by taking a certain action in a certain way at a certain time - like wearing green on a Thursday to make it rain, or brewing a special kind of tea to cure a disease. Power is given to objects - like charms and sigils. Like affects like! A goodwife can be anyone, with no need for their own power. It's all about what you use.

2) The Alchemist, or Physic, follows the same logic as the common practicioner, but applies a more scientific study to magic, and perfoms more complex spells. Again, they're just normal people without inherent power.

3) Magical creatures! Creatures from folklore and myth seep their own inherent, chaotic magic and they're pretty tied to the people and the land that birthed them.

4) Witches! In my comic, witches are pretty different from normal people who perform folk magic. They're born with their own inherent, volatile power to reweave reality at will and they're really second only to gods - the one thing they can't do is extend their mortal lifespan. They're born, not made - more often than not a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. In some places, they're treated as all powerful tyrants, in others, they're so feared that they're left to die at birth.

5) Lastly, gods! Different sets of gods exist in the world of Sargentum - the ones that appear come from the Brittonic (Celtic), Old English, and Roman pantheons - as they're all cultures that left their mark on England at some point, and their gods stayed with their people. Different cultures' gods can coexist (the Roman Empire was known for subsuming a lot of local Celtic and Germanic gods into their own pantheon!) and they're tied to their land/people the same as magical creatures and spirits. Also, their power is kind of...dependent on if you believe in them or not?

So yeah that's mine!

I do a mix of different things in my comics. I use color and glow to symbolize things in the comic. When it comes to words for spells for the bad stuff or attacks it's fake. For good stuff its real from different paths. Like one of my characters is Anubis (Banusi is his fake name in books) and I actually own the book of the dead. There's a prayer in there that is for protection of boats and I use it in my writing. There's also old songs for a good harvest I use. I sometimes pull from my family knowledge for stuff or my local groups. Again, only good stuff in my books is real (well for what I can find so about 25-40% is still made up) and the bad stuff is 100% fake.

Magic in Devoured World is an innate ability any living being in that world is capable of; from people, to creatures, and even plants,

Its explained how the magic system worked on the first page actually-

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Long story short, Everything 'natural' in this world has some sort of magic/mana flowing through it
Since the Hearts are important to the flow of magic its kinda obvious creatures can't make their own mana,
They just take in any mana that enters their body Air, Food- etc (trying to replenish your mana via breathing would take hours though)

Anyway, anyone from here can have ANY combination of the following Aspects, Even all of them;
however, a particular problem does occur to those who are born with too much aspects..
buuuuut thats a discussion for later when my story gets there.

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These combinations of Aspects can even equal different "Combos" depending on how the individual learned to use it. Like Neon, and her dad Jack;

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Both have Dark/ Mind Aspects but Neon uses "Illusion" based magic,
and Jack's "Dark Hold" alters the properties of "Darkness" to various effects like;
1) Sticky Darkness' that sticks to things, and can move things like a puppet
2) Solid Darkness' that acts like a hard solid object/
3) Deep Darkness; that can contain objects, etc"

Guess the simplest way to think of it is- kinda like Skill Trees in Video games- you decide what way you want to go with the Aspect combination you're born with.

Then there's the case of Abyssals and Guardians, but I think thats a bit more plot related than magic related, so i'll just end it here~

I think how you choose to do magic is first decided by the system you put in place. Do you want soft or hard magic? So I think research here is important in deciding how you want to move forward. I personally think you should research in things related to the topic, such as sacred geometry and alchemy (for magic circles), if you want magic reagents, look up magical properties of plants, bones, etc... Is it energy based, were the caster manipulates the weave to creates something out of nothing. Is it a combination? I like to portray a combination of these things. I like showing the meanings of what the characters are doing through geometry, especially seen in the temples and buildings. I also have the types of magic people use, partially defined by there genetics (which makes is a soft magic system i think) but magic is not limited to those few people, but rather everyone taps into controlling the weave or energy or magic. I also find that more complicated spells will need more to accomplish them. So how would you depict that? reagents, wands, or the power of words. I have also done research into modern which craft, and the idea of magic is manipulating energy to your favor with intentions. There is many routes you can take, but I think you should pick the one that you like the most or what you seem drawn to.

If you want some visuals you can look at my comic whenever.

So technically in my comic it's not magic per se. But it also is. It's hard to explain without going into spoilers.

But as for showing it. When characters in my comic activate their Sparks, there is a bright flash of light that manifests as a four pointed star.

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This is the same no matter what kind of power their Spark makes.

After the flash, there is a generation of an Energy Field. Think of it like an electromagnetic field,but each one has a different type of power.

There's different kinds of EF. Some only effect the person, Input. Freya has an Input power.

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Some make external effects like balls of flame, or lasers, or singularities, these are called Output.
Erick here has an Output Spark

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Rarely there are Input\Output Sparks that effect both inside and outside of the characters. Like Loki here. He can teleport, and also teleport other people by touching them.

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Now...there's another factor with Sparks. They depend on the planet. Yes, some planets have what's called a Source Energy Field. And the stronger the levels of this SEF, the more likely it is for the planet's inhabitants to be born with Sparks.

There's some other factors as well that are genetic. Sparks pass on throughout generations. Approximately 50% of the universe's population has Sparks.

I'm going to introduce Runestones to my comic. Basically, you pick the rune with the power you want, smash it into where you want the power to go, then wait 9 minutes for it to recharge.

I especially love magic systems that have detailed explanations on what mechanisms control them. For instance, I once wrote a story about wizards whose brains had an implant that essentially created a wireless network of sorts. Our brain sends electronic pulses along nerves to control motor function, but this implant allowed the wizards to send similar pulses out into the world "wirelessly" to channel and control ambient Mana. Basically, like looking at your hand and balling it into a fist, the implant could also let a wizard sort of reach out with invisible extra limbs to touch Mana. The implant also effected their physical senses, allowing them to perceive an added layer of reality only available to wizards.

As a reader, I like pretty much any magical system, as long as it makes sense within the story (read: no deus ex machina spells, if you said that something is impossible and even based a good part of your story on the premise that a certain type of spell is impossible, then you better stick to your own rules - looking at you, Once Upon A Time XD). As for cool ways to portray magic, I found what they did in The Magicians -with the weird hand gestures- to be very intriguing... though I only saw a few episodes and I can't really judge on the magic system of the series as a whole.

For my comic, the main idea is that magic is more or less a skill that anyone can use. Like with any other skill, there will be people that are naturally better at it and others that struggle, but the key is that anyone can learn, as long as they put effort into it. There is a genetic component to magic, which is why magical bloodlines are a thing, and usually mages born within a certain bloodline tend to be more powerful than others, but that doesn't mean that they're the only ones who can do it: they just have it easier than others.

Magic can be pretty taxing, both physically and mentally, so if you're stressed or tired you may want to refrain from doing it, otherwise results can be rather... unpredictable. Most witches specialize in one or two branches of magic, usually starting with elemental magic, since it's the easiest to work with it. Other types of magic, like shapeshifting, can be VERY complicated and only a few witches/wizard are capable of doing it, with limitations. In some cases, mages can be naturally gifted with a special ability (mind reading, precognition, whatever)... though, depending on the case, that may not always be a good thing D: in short: magic cannot be used for everything and if you don't know how to use it, it will backfire.

As far as how spells go, there are a bunch of ways: you can move your hands or snap your fingers and produce flames/water/wind, but it will usually only last a few seconds. For more lasting results, you may want to work with an already existing elemental source... and even then, forget about creating a tornado or a full-blown earthquake that destroys the whole town, as the range of a spell tends to be limited to just a few meters. For spells that work if you're distant/not physically present on the spot, one can use sigils and/or enchant objects directly to make them release a certain spell when touched; that's especially popular for protection spells and such. Potions and crystals are also a thing that can be used to make certain spells more powerful and/or last longer.

As for magical effects... well... technically speaking, I would have loved for my magic to be "invisible", aka you're not really supposed to hear/see anything until the spell is released, but you're a mage yourself you can feel the energy "changing" around you. However, since I realize that doing something similar in comic form may not work very well, I decided to go for more traditional "magical" effects, sometimes coupled with faint sounds:

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In this particular case, since we're dealing with a shapeshifter, I also chose to represent the change of voice when transitioning from one form to the other by using a gradient on the balloon outline

My type of magic is poetry. Novice mages chant rhymed spells, professionals work in silence but it's always poetry. Not all poets can be mages but all mages must be poets.

Here's the novel:
(I've just began publishing it but it's a finished book)