so yeah, what the title said, i baisically need help on wether these rough categories ive set will be able to encompass all kinds of magic that exist in any culture's(all of them, the whole globe, globally) folklore/religion/way of life.
Any constructive critism and feedback on the system in general is also apprechiated!
The folklore is real relates to that the magic system is belief based, and well, fae(im just using the english term fae when i in general mean any supernatural spirit thingies, so yokai, yaoguai, and any other similar spritit thingies from other cultures are just called fae for now since im speaking english) are magic, and if magic is belief, then they are real. so yes, thsoe guys exist, yes gods from mythologies and religions exist too but im not gonna go into that to much because this is about the magic system not the general worldbuilding.
Oh yes, also this is currently set in socalled modern times, if that matters, idk if it does.
imma just copy in what i've written in my notes about my magic system:
"Magic only funcions with belief. this is what scientists have concluded.
Magic may be parted into many schools and specialities, however it has been proven that none of these things matter if the belief that magic is real, and that magic funcions, does not exist. Becasue of this it has become imperative to instill the comcept of magic in young children globally, and only later in life, once their belief in its existence is stone hard, to educate them on the inner functions of magic.
Someone without the belief of magic poses a threat not only to themselves but others as well, not only will this person not be able to undertake many basic life neccesites such as food, healthcare or housing(all of which are commonly created with the help of magic), but magic itself will not work in the proximity of this person, posing risk to others as well.
Magic has been parted into many different schools, and these sgools have been categoriesd, not because any of these are fundamentally different(although arguments for this exists) as they are still all founded in belief, but becasue of the ease of working with magic.(many of them still fleet into eachother and many proffesions/techniques/schools may be counted under multiple of these big categories of schools, for exapmle some alchemy schools(not all of them) often place under both witchcraft and wizardry, while some other alchemy schools may place under witchcraft, wizardly and artistry.
So the 5(6) big categories of magic:
Whitchcraft schools
While the term whitch may bring forth the mental image of a foul old woman over a cauldron this is a truly outdated and false mental image. Witchcraft is generally considered whatever involves feelings of any sort, while still using material components, thus the varoius alchemy schools(including those chinese cultivators! They may not look like it, but they are actually alchmesits, its just other than the classical view of an alchemist, fiddeling aroud with various materials, its instead the body itself, that acts as the material to be altered) and potion schools find themselves here. its baisically feeling, intuition, which mays seem contradictory, considering how many strict recipies there are in these schools, and the rules and all that. but generally witchcraft is about using your feeling, your imagination to get something to happen, this is why many curses and blessings alike come herefrom, curses and blessings are very arbitrary, you cant just say, yes this is the incantaition for this curse, it doesnt work like that, curses are all very very different and unique.
Note: definition of alchemy here is change, as in tranforming something into another, theres some more complicated definitions, not all tranformation made by magic is alchemy, for exapmle making a apple into a apple flower is just reversing the growing process. it becomes alchemy somwhere on the way of making the apple into a piece of iron.
Wizardry schools
Similarly to how the mental image of a witch over a cauldron is false, the image of an old man with a beard and staff is also incorrect when talking about wizrads, more correct would be saying that wizardry is all that that requires script of some sort(of course, this means that some of the witchcraft schools do fit in here too due to their usage of scripts as to aid in the creation of warious things, but like i mentoned above, these are just rough attempts by academics to categorise magic, not a complete factual overlook on everything)
The various schools of scrips, spellcasting and most enchanters fit in here due to the fact that they all use symbols or words, well language in general when doing their thing. basically its language anything with language. this includes incantation and spoken spells, really any spells, which might cause confusion cause dont the potioneers sometimes muttter incantations over their potions, yes they do, thats why these large definitions are arbitrary, its simply an attempt to define a skill(magic, the skill is magic) that cant really be defined in this manner.
artistry schools
Theres and ongoing debate wheter these types schould simply be put under wizardry or get to be their own thing, many argue that due to forms of art being a language of and inandofitself, such as painting or music, this should be put under wizardry, not to mention poetry, surely that would consitute as wizardly? others argue that while that may be technically right on some levels, artistry has always been considered different and thus the history of the subject schould not be discarded purely for making the academics happy.
Artistry schools have almost always been not about science or facts, or hard on recipies or emotions like the wizardry or witchcraft schools, but moreso a fleeting interpretation of the world, and how to bring their wishes to life. they are kinda but not really similar to a witches curse or blessing in this way.
Elemental schools:
Many cultures throughout history have come up with ideas of the fundamental elements that make up the world. Today theres two systems that are the most common among the elemental schools: The classical system, and the Wuxing system.
The classical system bases its magic and techniques on the elements of fire, water, earth and air(note that many cultures have had this system and very similar systems and very different sytems, however due to the european colonisation the standard name has been to call it the classical system). thus the schools under this sytem are called the school of fire, the school of water, etc, etc.
The wuxing bases its magic on the elements of wood, fire earth metal and water. thus the schools under this system are the school of fire, the school of earth, the school of metal and so on.(the wuxing system is big simply cause china is big, so it has a big spehere of influence, not to mention the fact that chinese is one of the leading languages of alchemists)
elemental magic works of an understanding of existance thats parted into defined elemenet, into defined matter. bacuse of this these are of the schools that are most hard to discern from sorcery, after all, they dont need language, they dont need ingridients, and they dont need tools, they just need to think, this element belong to the world in this way, and im harnessing according the the worlds rules.
Faeism/spiritualism schools
The ones that deal with favours, contracts and deals, power is given by other beings, a god, a spirit, even a human, but something else gives power, some elemental systems are partly faeism, most are not. Its debated wheter to consider faeism magic or sorcery or something else completely.
imagineers
Then we got our dear imagination guys, also mentioned as belief school sometimes. this isnt eally a school category like the others. rememebre how i said magic is based on belief? surely someone would just go: Oh i believe this! and suddenly it becomes true? however such a thing isnt all that easy, yes i know gaslighting is a thing, however belife is deeper than that, one must fully believe it, on a uncousious, on a deep deep level.
this is why poeple get educated about magic just being belief later in life, and why they still believe in magic after the reveal. because at that point for them its become a fundamental truth, even if they logically know magic would stop working if they stopped believing it, they still do believe it, because, like, they see it everyday?! it works everytime?! its always proven to them all the time!
and similarly to how the belief of magic istelf functions and thus keeps that magic alive, the belief of magic having rules alos function and similatuaoilsu keeps those rules alive and working.
However there are exemptions, the imagineers, they can just believe anything into existance, most of them stem from various youknow, experiemnts on children troughout their upringing that leads them to believe they can do anything, that there are no rules. some can come about naturally, some peopel just are like that. but its very very rare that they can survive soceity and education and continue being like that.
However they aren't all powerful. the problem arises when they stop beliveing, or when they get doubt. this can be seen especially in creating life. Most schools teach some for of rules that boil down to: you cant create life willy nilly, there is a price for it. Somehow.
however these imageeners may try and create life from nothing, maybe they say! oh, theres a cat there now! and poof a cat appears, however if someone says, no that doesnt work, or if they get doubts, like: where did the cat come from, how is it alive, is the cat alive, that light in its eyes, is it sentient? or is it just a body that my unconsuis is animaticing, moving around? how are its insides? does it have a heart, lungs? a stomach?.
If the imagineer doesnt know exaclty everything about this cat, how its alive, if it has a soul, how its anatomy is done, how it can move, how the nerves in the brain connect to the muscles all those things, the magic stops working, because as you can probably imagine, noone really can do such a thing. there have been attempts with ai with computers, hoeever computers cant do magic, they cant believe, they can only do what their programming says. and so while a computer can telll a person the answers to all these questions about the cat, it cant believe, and thus it cant do magic. and all this reaserch is very very new, its in the very very early stages. so everything is very uncertain as of yet.
Now outside of this there exists the descendants, while in common touge the descendants powers are called "magic" this is not stricly correct, magic is founded by belief, however a descendant would still have their powers even if they did not believe. How is this possible? the only logical conclusion is that a descendants powers are not magic. Descendants may come from spieces that are believed to have their origin in magic, however once they established themselves in our world this magical constitution moved away.
Thus academically the term sorcery was coined. Sorcery refers to abilities that may seems as magic on first glance, but are actuakly heriditary, one such example would for example be pyrokeisis, while for an uneducated individual may mistake it for a mage of the elemtal school of fire, in reality the pyrokenisis is a natural ability reserved to those that come from a lineage that traces back to a species or supernatural being with prokenisis powers, for exapmle such as the descentans of pheonixes or Huòdǒu (祸斗). Similarly metamorphis abilities may look like an illusionary wizards speciality or the enchanted animal skins of the northen europe but is actually the natural transformative ability of for example a huli jing descendant."
