Making
MAGIC
For your Fiction
NOT for LitRPG novelists!
If you are a LitRPG writer, and you're trying to make a numerical leveling System for your fantasy story, please refer to: Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game. The Dungeon Master's Handbook, specifically. After all, that's where LitRPG came from.
Also see:
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So you want to have Magic in your brand new fictional Fantasy world?
Alright then, lets start with a few simple World-Building questions, so you have some idea of what you're in for-- I mean some idea of what you're going to need to know to make your new world feel solid and logical to your Readers.
How
does Magic
Affect Your Fantasy World?
If you're a writer planning to use
Magic in your world, here are a few things to ask yourself while you
world-build.
What are they using Magic for?
If Magic is in common use, are they using it to make War or
Peace? Are they cooking their food with it? Storing their valuables
with it? Building castles with it? Traveling across great distances,
or only short hops from town to town? Do they have horseless
carriages? Flying ships? Are they communicating across distances with
it as commonly as we do with our cell phones? -
Or is it not in common use? If
not, then what are they doing with their Magic? Are these magical people in hiding, or protected by the government? Are they gathered in special enclaves, or living scattered among everyone else?
Who has Magic?
Does everyone have Magic, or only a special few? Why would only the special few have it? Were some born with the
talent for it, rather like an Artist? Is it something anyone can
develop as long as they have proper instructions, like an athlete? Is it something only a few families pass
down through their genetic lines? Is there a special
substance that must be grafted onto the body to allow one to use
Magic, such as a magical runic tattoo? Does one need a special artifact
from a bygone age, or has technology finally developed enough to create a specific tool to access Magic? Does
it take a super secret special ritual to awaken one's Magic?
What powers Magic?
Where does the ability to use Magic come from? Is it granted as a favor
from Spirits? An endowment from Gods? Can one gain Magic from an elixir
you eat or drink? Is it generated by an organ such as a Magical
Core? Is it an aether that fills the atmosphere that one has to learn
to collect, like in Cultivation novels? Is it a power that's already
there that one must learn to Feel, like the Force? Oh wait,
Cultivation novels use that one too.
How do people learn to use Magic?
Magic can be very dangerous to both the practitioner and the unaware people around them, if handled incorrectly. So, how does one learn to Control it? Do people have to go to schools to learn how to use Magic? Are the skills passed down through apprenticeship under an experienced
practitioner? Does one learn to use Magic from the Gods or Spirits themselves?
From dreams? Can someone learn to use Magic by complete accident?
Has your world always had access to Magic,
or is it a new development?
When and where did the use of Magic start? Did a meteor hit the planet and just...irradiate people with Magic? Did some wellspring of pure Magic from the Soul of the World erupt to spray magic into the air like a geyser? Did someone just wish Magic to happen, and it did? Did some strange traveler come and bless certain individuals with Magic?
If Magic isn't a sudden new
development, how long people have
been using it? Are there a few famous
practitioners? What kind of History does your Magic have?
What kind of Spiritual Background
are you using for your brand of Magic?
This is Not a trick question. You are basing your fantasy Magic on some form of real Magical/Spiritual practice, right? You're not trying to create a whole Magical doctrine from pure Make-Believe, or worse: relying on Dungeons and Dragons for your Magic, right?
Surely you don't plan to rely on Make-Believe to create your own History of Magic from scratch?!
In the beginning, the spirits said, "Let there be MAGIC...!" And it was good.
Writing
a History of MAGIC?
Can be more Headache than it's worth.
----- Original Message -----
...How am I supposed to explain how magic has evolved
over [1000] years from singing and chanting spells to automatically
using magic circles to unleash devastating spells? Like how did
people discover drawing circles in the air with magic text inscribed
in them was better than singing your lungs out?
-- Concerned Fantasy Writer.
Making up a full (fictional) History of Magic, or even a partial
History of how early (fictional) Magic progressed from using a shamanistic
style of magic; rituals and prayer incantations, into condensed mana
imprints; spell circles cast on thin air, especially when there's a
thousand years of progress between them, is a Big Project.
What you're trying to do here is similar to coming up with the history of how humanity went from using bows, swords, and horses to
conduct warfare, to modern warfare using sub-machine guns, tanks, and
helicopters.
To even attempt this, would take massive research.
Just to start with:
How much do you know about:
The History of actual Magic?
Not make-believe magic, like what's found in Dungeons and Dragons, but Real, historical Magic as it is currently practiced here on Earth?
Stonehenge
A brief History of actual
Magic
The History of Magic
starts at the dawn of human existence, but most archaeologists are
Scientists. They don't always recognize what's right in front of
their noses.
Put It Back!
Magic after all, is the bailiwick of Dreamers, Artists
and Poets. It often takes a Dreamer to spot the Magic among the
mundane, (and save their lives.)
Luckily, there are a lot of Dreamers writing
book after book, and blog post after blog post, about Magic and it's
actual History.
Here's a very basic Summery:
-- The earliest form of Magic was
basic shamanism -- practiced by native people all over the world. Magical songs, magical music, and magical dances to celebrate the sun, create rain, call the wind, bring down lightning, stop floods, walk in the bodies of beasts, encourage fertility in people, land, and livestock, or call an end to winter, are all shamanistic practices. Shintoism for example, is a somewhat advanced form of shamanism still in practice.
-- Starting in the Bronze age, metal workers; Smiths, were considered powerful Magicians who sang over their forges and knew the secret of how to turn rough stones into gleaming weapons. Especially magical were the sword makers; the bladesmiths who used all kinds of sacred and profane ingredients, including fallen stars, to make mystical unbeatable swords that could empower or curse their wielders.
-- Long before Christianity began, Judaic ceremonial
magicians worked with divine beings and developed the Tree of Life as a progression map. Through prayers and songs
they recorded in their Torah; the precursor to the common bible, they called down divine retribution, parted seas, sealed ifrits and genies into bottles, and introduced the idea of an Evil counterpart to the Divine: Shaitan; the Adversary.
-- From India came the sutras;
massive, long, and convoluted prayers that induce a meditative state
so strong --and useful-- that the entire far east jumped on
their bandwagon, branching out into thousands of different forms of
Buddhism.
-- In China, Buddhism was added to the native forms of Shamanism, Astrology, Alchemy, and Numerology. This developed into a new form of Chinese Magic; Taoism, side-branching into Feng Shui. (Keep in mind, I'm being VERY general
here.), Both the Buddhists and the Taoists slew demons and monsters, laid the walking/hopping dead to rest, broke curses, and tamed spirits and ghosts. However the Taoists also cultivated enlightenment to reach immortality, and apparently flew on swords as well. Much later, Confucianism was added to the mix and the fortune-telling Tao Te Ching emerged.
-- Chinese Magic; Taoism, eventually spread to Heian Japan. It mixed with the native shamanistic practices and Buddhism already there, and the Onmyoji sorcerers came into being. They did all the same thing as their Taoist counterparts did, except cultivate to immortality and fly on swords.
-- The Celestial or Sacred Mathematics known as Geometry started in ancient Babylonia. It was used for surveying, astronomy, and construction of their massive temples. The Egyptians grabbed onto it and developed it further. They used it for surveying, astronomy, and construction too, but they wanted their sacred palaces, sacred temples, and sacred pyramids to line up with their favorite stars.
-- India developed their own form of Geometry for all the same reasons, and built gigantic sacred temples like everyone else, only a lot more decorative.
The Greeks snatched it from both India and the Egyptians, then developed Geometry into a high art form. They used it to build even fancier palaces and temples that lined up with the sun, the moon, and certain planets.
-- When the Romans took over Greece, they got a hold of Geometry, and a brand new invention called Cement; liquid stone that hardened into any shape you had a mold for. They combined the two and promptly went insane. They used Geometry and Cement to build massive domed temples of every variety for every god, aqueducts, fountains, sewage systems, drainage systems, irrigation systems, road systems that covered most of the known world, central under-the-floor heating, heated in-home baths, whole apartment buildings, outdoor theaters, coliseums, purely decorative grand arches, and huge Imperial palaces.
-- By the close of the Roman Empire, Sacred Geometry was firmly under the control of a brotherhood of architects and builders known as the Masons, and was jealously hidden away from anyone that wasn't a Masonic Architect. For over a thousand years the Masons kept Geometry as a Magical secret. Only they knew how to construct the massive, awe-inspiring Sacred temples, mosques, and cathedrals.
-- The modern 'Order' of the
Free Masons had their start here. In fact, if you look at any modern Mason ring you'll see the "G" for Geometry.
-- During the Byzantine era, a Syrian Alchemist created the chemical bomb
known as Greek Fire for the Byzantine Emperor. Greek Fire was considered very Magical indeed because no
one could figure out how he did it. The Syrian never told anybody. Much, much later something similar appeared under the name: napalm.
-- In the early to mid 1200's, Roger Bacon, a medieval English philosopher and Franciscan friar, was also regarded as a Wizard. He's attributed to have invented gunpowder (clearly borrowed from the Orient,) and the magnifying glass.
-- In the late 1200's, Dante Alighieri, an Italian poet, writer, and philosopher published three works of fiction that pretty much changed how every single Christian in the world saw Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. His Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, were published just in time for the invention of the Gutenberg Press. The books promptly spread all over Europe to every home that could afford a printed book.
-- Dante's stories introduced the nine levels of Hell, and the names of the demons that lived there. They also described the levels of Purgatory, and what could be found there, and the nine levels of Heaven and the names of the angels that lived there. King Solomon was also tossed in and recorded to have captured and sealed away a great many demons into bottles. Dante listed the names of those demons too. These books also introduced the concept of a War in Heaven. This war featured a peerless angel that rebelled against God, and was punished for it by being thrown out, or down rather, to become the ruler of Hell. He even named that fallen angel and gave the ruler of Hell a title borrowed straight from the Torah: Shaitan -- Satan.
-- By the mid 1300's, all the demons and angels mentioned in Dante's works of fiction, were accepted as being actual demons and angels. Absolutely everyone accepted that the War in Heaven actually happened, and the story of the fallen angel as Fact. There was a Satan in Hell, just ask anyone, even your local priest, and Satan was out to get You.
-- Fiction suddenly became Fact because the Black Plague happened, then the Bubonic Plague and the only explanation anyone had for everyone dropping dead around them was either "God hates us," or "Someone is out to get us." Since every priest in existence insisted that God would forgive them no matter what, it had to be...Satan! It was all Satan's fault!
-- By the late Middle Ages (c. 1350–1450), the various Churches scattered throughout the known world were getting very, very nervous about losing all their (tithe) revenue because fewer and fewer of their parishioners were going to Church. They had reason to be nervous. There was a Pagan revival going on. Pagan rituals and celebrations were a lot more fun than sitting in a cold room crammed in next to your unwashed, smelly neighbors on hard wooden seats being snarled at by the local priest for hours. Nobody wanted to be yelled at for enjoying making love to your own spouse, enjoying the beer and mead you brewed in your own cellar, or the wife using her skills to make an income to help support her family.
-- To deal with the crisis, the church did two things. The first was to make all the local gods into Saints and allowed local celebrations -- though now sanctified by the local church.
-- The other was a Smear Campaign against anything, and everything to do with Magic. It worked on the uneducated populous. The educated populous however, smiled
in church, then held secret book club meetings. In their private parlors and
basements with close friends and associates they perused old obscure books about Magic.
-- As a result of those secret book clubs, in the 1400's, Middle Eastern Alchemy, became quite popular in Europe,
and split into two distinct branches. One branch was very practical in
nature. These Alchemists developed the earliest techniques for creating
artificial, manufactured, jewels: diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and rubies. They did this by combining base ores and certain chemicals in a high pressure furnace called an Athanor. Of course a lot of them blew themselves up doing it too. Anyway! Today, Cubic Zirconium; manufactured diamonds, are created in this
exact fashion. With a lot fewer people being blown up.
-- The other branch of Alchemy was highly philosophical in nature,
and considered one of the earliest forms of Psychology. The very
earliest being talking to your local shaman or priest. This 'spiritual' Alchemy became known as Hermeticism.
-- During this same time period, the Northern Europeans went through a Magical Renaissance. They developed
a whole new Magic system built from dredging through every obscure book they could find. This new Magic was a combination of Judaic ceremonial magic, different forms of fortune-telling, Astrology, Greek Philosophy, Hermeticism, plus a sprinkle of shamanistic spirit summoning, and mathematics. This form of Magic invoked Heavenly and Unholy powers using angelic and demonic names straight out of Dante's works of fiction, through basic addition and subtraction --called Magic
Squares-- that were later made circular and stamped on medallions.
-- You can find a bunch of these squares and the symbols they 'add' up to in the Ars Goatia, also called
the Lesser and Greater Keys of Solomon. THIS is where all those fancy
circle spells you see in manga and anime were borrowed from.
-- In 1478, the Spanish Dominicans, a branch of rabid Christians who murderously loathed anything that wasn't their brand of Catholicism, (and women in general,) petitioned the Monarchy of the newly unified Spanish kingdom
for permission to combat heresy and demon worship in Spain. They were
called the Spanish Inquisition. They were also called, Domini Canis; Dogs of God -- implying just how rabid they were. This Inquisition had their own form of
Magic that utilized prayers from the bible, consecrated hosts, holy water made by their churches, blessed swords, and lit torches. Permission granted, they went absolutely insane. They
grabbed anyone and everyone that wasn't their brand of Catholic, from
peasant to noble. Especially if they were female. Once they tortured confessions out of them, they
burned or hanged them to death. Then they took their property -- for God. They killed a lot of people.
-- The Inquisition remained in operation burning and hanging heretics, demon worshipers, and witches all over the world until 1834.
-- In the early 1500's --despite the threat of The Inquisition-- a German Renaissance philosopher named Agrippa, came up with the Angelic Script, Transitus Fluvii, and Malachim alphabets
to make communicating with Heavenly beings easier.
-- During this period, telling the future by Scrying; seeing,
by peering into a bowl of liquid, peering into crystal balls, or reading the swing of a pendulum
over a laid out alphabet, plus Astrology, and Tarot card reading, became
very, very popular. Everyone who was anyone was doing at least one of
them.
-- In the late 1500's, an an English Renaissance occultist and scryer called Sir Edward Kelly, and John Dee, an English court astronomer, came up with the Enochian alphabet. This was also meant for communication with Heavenly beings -- and taming ghostly beings.
-- In the 1600's, Voudon, (voodoo), a
form of native West-African shamanistic magic mixed with prayers and
songs from the King James bible, developed in Haiti and quickly spread
through all the islands close to it. It also spread to the Southern US and outward
with the slave trade.
-- By the mid 1700's, the British isles developed two
distinct forms of magic. Witchcraft; based on native shamanistic
rituals, and Ceremonial Magic, which was pretty much a cleaned up and
polished version of what was being practiced in Europe mixed with
Masonic rituals. Currently, the witchcraft forms are called Wicca,
Paganism, and Heathenism respectively, and the ceremonial forms are mostly under the
headings: Hermeticism and Western Esotericism, with thousands of variations
under both types of magic.
-- In the 1800's consumption; tuberculosis, began to kill large numbers of people all over the place. Because everyone had someone they dearly missed, a pretty large occult revival happened all over Europe and in the US. Seeing and talking to spirits of the dead by way of seances: featuring full on possessions by ghosts, table-tapping, levitating objects, and the appearance of ectoplasm, became very, very popular. Especially in England.
-- In the mid 1800's, the Rosicrucian Fraternity appeared in the US, a mix of Occultism, Hermeticism, and Christian gnosticsm. Supposedly it had a long and involved history that goes back to the 1500's, but that history has since been debunked as Fictional. However, the Magic works just fine.
-- In 1940 in England, Neopagans, and very witchcraft Wicca, emerged onto the public domain. They had been practicing in hiding for literal centuries. Their brand of Magic is shamanistic at core, very individualistic, and only loosely organized. Wicca can and does borrow bits and pieces from just about every other form of paganism, mysticism, and the occult -- depending on the practitioner's personal feelings, beliefs, and curiosity.
-- In 1969 modern Satanism happened. This was
invented by one man: Anton LeVay. He used bits of the common King James bible mixed with
demonic names from Dante's books, a smattering of Hermeticism, European magic squares, and a dash of basic Golden Dawn brand ceremonial magic to make it pretty.
-- In 1977, the US government recognized Wicca as an official legal Religion. This prompted a massive explosion of books for and about witchcraft. Some quite informative and well researched, others, a jumbled rehashing of what was already floating around from the last occult movement during the 1800's. Buyer beware.
And that's just skimming the surface of the History of Magic right here on
this world. If you want to know more, Google is your friend.
Knowing the Facts about real Magic can assist you in making any
form of fictional Magic --no matter how Make-Believe-- not only logically operable, but feel Real and possibly
even familiar to the readers.
As for the original question...
The Irregular at Magic
High School, Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei
You Don't need to Invent a
whole
History for Magic.
Writing a whole history; even in note form, would be a massive
amount of work. Instead, focus on how your
spells are Powered, and the
Reasons why the spells were
changed from incantations to mana imprints.
Just coming up with how your mana imprints happen will be
headache-inducing enough.
I mean seriously, do they have to Memorize every circle they intend to use, then project that memory plus the right amount of mana every single time they want to cast a spell? Doesn't that limit them to only casting One spell at a time?
Are you aware that at this point in time; the Modern Era, no one is capable of doing that? The human brain simply will not allow it.
Clearly, they are going to need something to assist them in making those circles occur, so they can then put their mana into them.
I suggest looking up how the microchip works.
It
might inspire you as to how long arias and chants (simple circuitry,)
became far more condensed spells, (the microchip.) link -->
The
basics of microchips
Just so you know, the Microchip as a basis of How Magic
Works is used in the manga and anime series: The Irregular at
Magic High School, Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei.
In Conclusion...
If you're determined to create
your own brand of Magic for your stories, your best place to start is with the
History of Magic that already exists for whatever culture you happen
to be writing in. Use it as a jumping off point, or a framework that
explains why your magic works the way it does. Simply adjust the facts to fit the story you want to write. Add things, or subtract
things as needed.
Just please be aware that there will be actual practitioners in
your reading audience. We will Know when you mess up and don't
keep to your own lore, just as easily as we know when someone is
using Dungeons and Dragons as a base for their magical system.
After all, we love Fantasy stories too. If we didn't, we wouldn't
be practicing magic in the first place.
☕
Morgan Hawke
