How does you power/magic system work? ALSO PROMOTE HERE

There are, ultimately, three different kinds of magic in my setting. There's a lot of classic fantasy/DnD vibe to them, although I have my own way of handling the details.

The first is Arcane Magic. This is spellbooks, wands, potions, etc. Arcane magic is native to the world itself-- it's basically the 'Code' of the universe, and is nigh-impossible to learn on your own. It must be taught, takes years to learn and decades (or longer) to truly master. Because it doesn't come naturally, if you aren't familiar with a particular Word or mechanic, you can't even accurately perceive it, let alone use it (or hope to be able to counter it effectively). Practitioners are often called wizards, mages, spellwrights, witches, or the like.

The amount of power a given arcane caster can throw around is limited to one of two factors: how much external power they can gather and release at once, or how big/well developed their ara'tuun (the portion of the soul that catches and directs magic) is. Someone with a particularly large/well-developed ara'tuun will still have to actually STUDY in order to learn magic, but once they do, they'll have an advantage over casters with lesser ara'tuuns, simply because they can cast longer, and hit harder. Ara'tuun is set at birth, is not hereditary, and literally anyone can have a large OR small ara'tuun. (Technically it's possible to increase one's ara'tuun... but this is considered a MASSIVE heresy, and the magic to do it has been lost to time.)

The second is Divine Magic. This is power granted by the gods to mortals they find devout, deserving... or at times simply convenient or amusing. Practitioners don't learn spells by hard study, but in moments of inspiration. They can become obscenely powerful or lose their magic entirely literally overnight, based on the whims of their deity, although such drastic swings are rare (unless you're serving a chaos deity or something... but dude... that's YOUR fault).

While divine casters have less control over the what/how/when of their magic, divine magic is superior to arcane magic in several ways: divine casters don't tire from casting if their deity doesn't want them to, and the power of their spells isn't limited to their own ara'tuun, but that of their deity. Furthermore, if you need a healing spell, you want a divine caster. Arcane magic, unless it is extremely fine-tuned and specific to an individual, heals by sticking the broken bits back together. It heals the wound the way your body would under the best-case-scenario of care. You will still scar, there may be consequences. Divine magic undoes the wound, returning the body to the state it was in before the wound ever happened.

The third is Faerie Magic. Faerie magic originates from the life-force of every living thing on the planet, as well as the 'spirit' of a place. Mountains, for example, aren't alive... but they're still significant sources of faerie magic, because they are old, and they affect the landscape, climate, and living things for miles around them. Faeries, in fact, ARE faerie magic that has achieved sentience and form. Mortal practitioners cannot learn faerie magic on their own-- it has to be given to them (or inflicted on them) by a faerie, or by the mortal spending too long in the Fae realm.

The magic itself is semi-sentient, and a practitioner wielding has to sort of... negotiate with it. Faerie magic likes to do certain things (make things grow, illusions, large bursts of elemental power), and doesn't like to do other things (finicky, detailed, controlled magic). One's ara'tuun has zero bearing on how much faerie magic one can wield-- the power of your magic is determined entirely by how MUCH faerie magic has decided to inhabit you. This is a trade-off: power and control are inversely related where quantities of faerie magic are related unless you ARE a faerie. This lack of control is far from the only down-side to faerie magic-- it's easily countered by iron, dissolving pretty much on contact with it, for one. For another, faerie magic has... sort of an addictive quality to it. The more you have of it, and the longer you have it, the more of a slave you are to it-- the thought of losing it entirely becomes horrifying. And the 'withdrawal/detox' from having faerie magic for an extended period of time is... rough.

Aaaand that was more of an info-dump than I intended. Here's the comic! The main character can't use magic! Come find out why:

Thank you! I'm looking forward to showing it all off ... even if I'm a little afraid of trying to draw that many magical effects with markers.

In my series, a Fantasy with Sci-fi Roots, there is a substance that composes the existence, called "Echo", 4 types in particular can be found in various aspect (It's based on the 4 Aethers and with the therm "Ecospirituality", but Eco itself would have sounded like the "Eco" from Jak and Daxter):
Warmth Echo = Found in Celestial Bodies and Stars' cores (Echo that generate energy).
Light Echo = Found in atoms (Echo that unite and develop things)
Tone Echo = Found in Matter (Echo that give form and state to the matter)
Life Echo = Found in every life form (Echo that stabilize and... give life.)
Once researched, each type of Echo can be used in various technological fields, such as Energy Supply, Solid Holograms, "Internet Like Connection", Healing, etc...
Only one person is known to actually convert his own Life Echo into the others three, and that allows him to replicate the technological function of the various Echoes, in a more unstable but much more powerful way.

GENRE: Fantasy, Sci-fi Drama
From the nights He used to spend by reading tales of "the Dreamers", the young Alfredo Ananda Kasem always longed to be one of them as well, unaware of the Potential that resides in his Echo, that could change the lives of those around him, whose Stories, connected to His, are the KEY to bring changes to the World of Gaia, and lead to its peace once and for all.

LINKS:
https://www.instagram.com/fedriz_marini/

That's such an interesting system! I'm really enjoying Auster so far and I'm excited to see more of the power system in the comic :))

As an action-based story that spans multiple worlds, abilities/powers vary from world to world but for the purposes of this forum, I'll stick to the "main" race.
Elementians inherently have the ability to manipulate energies, however the control/power output of those energies can be categorized into different levels.

Nobles: Ultimate control and power, they can easily manipulate any of the 4 elements, have general telekinesis, and can manipulate organic cells(healing and stuff)
Warriors: Typically they can only manipulate 1 element and have weaker versions of the powers listed above, however they mostly use their magic to augment their fighting
Artisans: The weakest in magic, usually they can only imbue their magical energy into other objects

Elementians have dominance over Energy Manipulation, but have virtually no ability in material creation with the exception of the natural elements. A good metaphor would be that they belong to the Evocation School of magic in DnD, but can't do conjuration or necromancy or anything else like that??

Not sure if I explained that very well lol

The magic system in Blue Star Rebellion and Dragonfeathers is a pretty standard elemental one, but it's twined in with the worldbuilding and the nature of the cosmos. There are twelve elements:

• Power
• Life
• Force
• Illusion
• Light
• Shadow
• Water
• Fire
• Earth
• Wood
• Wind
• Lightning

A mage is born with the ability to manipulate one of these elements. This ability is innate, but it's honed and sharpened through training. Where one is born, as well as what species one is, has a huge influence over the likelihood of being born a mage. Places rich in magic will produce more mages. Conversely, places with little magic will produce few mages, if any at all.

Some species have a much greater magical potential, as well. For instance, Elves are overwhelmingly likely to be mages - in fact, it was almost unheard of for an Elf not to be a mage until they began exploring far into space, and settling planets with less magic than their homeworld. On the other hand, magical ability is quite rare in Humans, even those born on planets rich in magic.

Magical power is drawn from the Leystream. The Leystream is the flow of magical energy through all the cosmos; it is the fundamental energy which forms every subatomic particle. It is the cosmos, though its flow is deeper in some places, and shallower in others. Particularly concentrated areas are called Leypools, and are often where you will find significant structures, be they natural or artificial. Great trees, beautiful waterfalls, temples, or places of magical study will often be built on, or near, a Leypool.

The source of the Leystream is the Leyspring. It is situated in the very centre of the cosmos, and all that exists flows from it. It's guarded by beings called Keepers; ancient Elven sentinels, whose duty it is to protect and preserve the Leyspring and the cosmos.

The Leystream is everywhere, and is everything, so the lack of the Leystream is effectively a hole in the fabric of reality. This would be unnerving enough, but is made far worse by the fact that this void - known as scrios - is malignant. It is spawned in the hearts of those who turn away from the cosmos, and it grows to consume the Leystream, corrupting living things around it to spread itself further. If it ever consumed the Leyspring, the cosmos would wither and die.

This nearly happened once in the past, in the time when Light and Shadow were two halves of one whole. The Keeper of Light sacrificed her very existence, splitting her essence in twain to cause a cataclysmic blast of magical energy, and push the Scrios back. The civilisations across the cosmos are still recovering from this event, which came to be known as the Cataclysm.

In my novel there are people who can control the nature, these are called "Kashans". There isn't a limit about what they can control at all, once the nature is giant and wide

Magic in Faelumbre comes from the user's body, as they connect with nearby leylines to change reality to the best of their ability. It can use the person's stamina as fuel (basically a big excercise) or their soul's essence (no side effects and much stronger... at first). It's divided in twelve elements plus three "modified" types that alter the regular elements, when soul essence is used.

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Anyone in a magical environment can use magic (Earth is extremely low in magic and only strange paranormal locations have any; Faelumbre is full to the point it overloads at times), but it'll only grow in usefulness, past a barrier or small fireball, if trained like an instrument.

Generally, to cast magic you want a focus, something to put all your thoughts into the spell you'd like, and this can be a wand, book or something that's an amulet to you. Some showoffs like Mortimer in my comic, don't need any foci at all, and can just gestures from their body to mentalize the spell, not unlike martial arts but not particularly good for melee.

edit: I forgot to post the comic

In CELESTIALS, there are several forms of magic used - the main difference often being the source of which its users draw power from and the specific purpose. The comic mainly focuses on one form of magic for most of the comic and it's called "Pitian Magic". Basically, magicians draw power from the stars, passing through "mediums" - which are gems attached to ordinary objects, usually wands and staffs. Those aren't the only mediums people are allowed to use though, some people use swords and books and such as mediums. Pretty much as long as there are those gems attached, and you've trained yourself to use it properly, it qualifies as a magical medium.

About the gems - the more gems you have on your medium, the easier it'll be to control the flow of magic that goes through it. As magicians grow older, they eventually start to replace their wands with mediums with less and less gems. Oftentimes, the minimum number of gems is usually 4. Mediumless magic is very hard and nearly impossible to do, and only few magicians in history have been able to accomplish it.

Regulating the flow of magic is important because it directly correlates to magical burnout; when you overuse or improperly use your magical abilities you could get "burnt out" which range from a coma you never recover from, to losing your memories, to irreparable injuries.

sadly I didn't have the opportunity to implement a cool power system in a comic yet, but 2 of my upcoming comics will feature an idea for a power system that I wanted to try for a long time - Guardian Angels. they're fully sapient beings that watch over you, and when they manifest physically they've got cool abilities, but they're created beings - and as such, they tend to think like machines. it's up to the human that an Angel guards to come up with the most creative ways to utilize their ability. so fighting in this world requires Humans and Angels to balance the dynamics of their inherently weird relationship, and how well you do that translates to how you fight.
some people just prefer to enslave their guardian angels though. this threatens to put humans and angels at war, which is the central conflict of the story... and I think it's really cool I found a way to tie my power system into that!

Wow there are so many cool ideas here, many of them are so well fleshed out. Also I recently got into critical role so it's cool to see so many DnD references .

In the world of my novel, I imagined magic to be like a 5th fundamental force. Many materials and elements are fundamentally affected by magic. All "supernatural" feats of magic are just results of matter-magic interaction.

Elves and warlocks are the only predominant magic users I have introduced so far (sprites being a brief mention and perabels don't really use magic). There are physical channels in the bodies of magic users which are a lot like veins. These magic channels allow for the flow of magic through someone's body.

Magic channels form naturally in elves and warlocks but perabels need to make a conscious attempt to form them. Once formed, a magic-user may be resonant with certain forms of magic, giving them the capability to manipulate the respective element like fire. There are even cases where someone can have an affinity for certain metals but those are super rare. In general, elves have affinities for air and fire and warlocks have affinities for lightning and air (the second affinity of air is a little rarer for warlocks).

Perabels basically do science with magic. They find materials that interact with magic in strange ways, conduct research, and try to build devices and constructs that have desired magical properties. Among the greatest inventions is the huge barrier surrounding the stronghold in which much of the story is set.

There's a lot more to my system but these are the basics. In combat magic users have to come up with many creative solutions taking into account the enemy's abilities and how much magic they can manipulate before running dry. If you're interested to find out more details about my magic system, check out my novel! I've gotten through a couple of interesting combat sequences involving magic and there are a lot more to come.

The way magic works in Legends of Camelot hasn't been officially explained yet in the story, but some aspects were hinted.

For the ones curious about it, here are the basics:

-The act of doing magic comes from reading and writing the language of gods. This language comes in the form of symbols.

-For that purpose different mages and casters take different approaches, some carry runes with the symbols, others scribe them in their weapon or gear, others get their preferred symbols tatooed and some write them in the air doing sophisticated magical gestures on the spot. As long as the mage can properly read and has the symbol properly written, any combination of the previous methods or new ones are theorically possible.

-Magic consumes a spiritual energy that comes from the user's soul. Some call it mana, others chi, ki or whatever, but the everyone has their source. This can be trained just like a muscle, and takes hardwork and practice to have a bigger mana pool. The bigger the change of reality performed by the spell, the bigger the cost of mana. One can spend extra time focussing on the spell to channel the mana in an optimized way, but leaves you vulnerable in a combat situation.

-Because magic is connected to the user's soul, a user's affinity to different magic symbols will depend of their background and personality. For example: A sculptor will have a higher affinity to spells related to stone and a pacifist will have a lower affinity with spells with the symbol "destroy"

-A spell last as long as the user is focussed on it, but the indirect consequences of it stays: for example, a flame created by magic dissappears when the user is no longer focussed, but the things that got burned by said flame stay burned.

-The effect of a spell is defined by a combination of symbols. There are 4 types: nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.
For a spell to work you need at least one verb and one noun:

For example: "create fire"

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As you can see, king Uther has tattooed the symbol of creation in one hand and the symbol of fire in another, allowing him to create fire as long as he has enough mana.

The interpretation of the symbols is literal: the spell "create fire" doesn't give the user control of said fire, for that they would also need the verb "control". And the spell "control fire" doesn't create the fire, only gives control over a body of fire that is at the range of the user....

A single combination of symbols can be cast in different ways depending on how much mana an user spends and how much time do they focus on proper channelling of said mana:

As a general rule, it follows the "choose two" rule:

-A quick and cheap spell will not be strong (commonly called cantrips)
-A strong and cheap spell will not be quick (commonly called rituals)
-A quick and strong spell will not be cheap (those are called spells)

-Metamagic symbols are not neccesary for a spell, but some mages study them to boost their magic in different ways

-adjectives allow to overcome the regular limitiations of magic, but cost aditional mana. The bigger the limitation they overcome, the bigger the aditional cost

Examples of adjectives: "Silent":(allows casting a spell without reading out loud the symbols), "Independent": (allows to maintain a spell for some time without concentrating on it), "Cooperative":(allows an user to cast a spell with another mage) among many other possibilities

-adverbs are the opposite, they add aditional limitations, but in exchange, they lower the complexity of a spell, allowing stronger effects. the bigger the restriction, the bigger the boost in power one can achieve:

examples of adverbs: "slowly"(you need to take your time casting), "at full moon"(the name says it), "angrily"(the spell will only work if you are angry), "loudly"(you better shout the hell out of your spell)

Adjectives and adverbs are also affected by affinity. For example, a loner will have low affinity to the "cooperative" symbol and a bard may have a high affinity to the adverb "musically"

Is kinda long, but i plan of introducing the concepts gradually and organically through the story

What an interesting thread, might as well join .

So in my comic, there are many power/magic systems throughout the Universe. However, the main power/magic systems I focus on are Moonlight magic and Dark Matter. Let's start with Moonlight magic. This is used by the Moon Guardians/ Beings of Light.

-Moonlight can be summoned from the palm of your hands to create little images of light or butterflies which are a symbol of joy and playfulness in the Lunar Empire. It can also be used to heal.

-In order for Moonlight to be used as an attack, the Moon Guardians use special staffs. Their magic goes through the staffs and the Moonlight crystal at the tip can be used to create blasts, a scythe or it can be used for Piercing Moonlight. (Strongest Moonlight move where the user uses all their magic to summon thousands of Moonlight arrows that pierce the enemy.)

-Then there is Dark Matter. Used by the Corrupted. It's very similar to regular Matter, only it contains a parasite which corrupts the user. There are three different groups of Dark Matter. Construction, Mind and Strength. The common folk can use one or two of these and can do minor things with their powers. Those in a higher class can either use one very well, or can use all three. Each group can do different things. For example, those who use Mind Dark Matter can summon illusions or control other people's minds. Those is Strength might have super strength, agility or better stamina etc.

This looks fun! I can actually tell a lot of the basics of Shapers using some images from my site Things get a little more in-depth later into the story, but this is just enough info to get the gist of how Shapers work in the world of LOSTLAND