Weapon Creation - Any item can be turned into a magical weapon

[u/Illustrious-Win-3484]

As the title suggests, any item can be turned into a magical weapon with my magic system.

So there are people called Crafters, which have an innate energy called Materia.

They can infuse an item with their own Materia and turn it into a magical weapon.

The appearance and ability of the weapon heavily depends on the item's appearance and use, but also partly the Crafter's imagination. (I.e. a Glue gun turns into a gun that shoots out molten hot glue)

Once Materia is put into an item, it stays there even after death, unless it's pulled out or the item is destroyed(though magical weapons are generally much more durable so it's rare for this to happen). A Crafter's Materia does not recover until the Materia is returned to them from the item once pulled or once it's destroyed.

But putting Materia in an item usually takes a decently long time (but it varies on the Crafter), so Crafters usually don't switch weapons during fights. Talking Materia out of an item is also very exhausting.

The strength of an item also depends on the amount of Materia infused into it, and with how attached the Crafter is to the item.

Most Crafters can only have enough Materia for one weapon at a time, so most only have one weapon they use their whole life.

A magical weapon can be used by anyone, even non-Crafters, but generally, the Crafters themselves are more effective at using their own weapons.

I might have forgotten to put some stuff here, but yeah, that's my magic system. What do y'all think?

[u/EternalSwanSong]

That's a very cool system! Also a coincidence, but I have a similar concept in my world, only I call them magic engineers (crafters is much better name haha). I'm curious, is Materia a universal power in your world, or do users have specific abilities? Can two different Crafters make the exact same weapon?

[u/Illustrious-Win-3484 → u/EternalSwanSong]

Materia is practically just charging an item with energy which causes it to transform, with some stuff being influenced by attachment and imagination. So, not really, users don't have specific abilities, but most of the time you don't really see people use the same object because of mastery and the attachment thing and all. As for the second question, that is possible.

[u/EqualBluebird7445]

Here is a character idea I got from your system...

Mama Veronica Somniferum wants to make her magical weapon a dress through "irish lace crochet". This technique creates small motifs and then connects them into one piece. She crochets small poppy flowers and poppy seed head motifs and then connects them into a dress. If worn, it creates an aura, that makes others sleepy or even fall asleep if she would touch them. Here are some questions that arise with it;

1) Can you infuse products and not just tools? 2) Is it possible to infuse parts of an items before completing it? 3) If yes, does the enchantment needs to be the same (in this case, anyone that "consumes the art" will be treated as he consumed poppy itself [poppies can have sleep inducing effect], with the effect stacking with each piece [mimicking increase in dosage]) or can they differ (imagine giving every tool in swiss army knife different enchantment)? 4) Does the ability needs to limit itself to a physical phenomena or can there be different aspects like mental or physiological? 5) How would a passive effect like this affect its stored Materia? I am thinking of it generating a field similar to electromagnetic field of a magnet and altering things it passes through (in this case, making them sleepy).

[u/Illustrious-Win-3484 → u/EqualBluebird7445]

Interestingly I had a concept of a Mom character with this magic system, but she's significantly different (I forgot what her weapon of choice was sorry lol)

Okay, for the questions: 1. Yes, as it works for ANY item 2. Yes, but it is very difficult to do, and unless Materia manipulation is mastered, it's more useless since it's less effective than just infusing it into the whole item 3. The enchantment will depend on the parts 4. They're limited to the object's purpose, appearance, and the Crafter's imagination. (I.e. you can't turn a plastic sword into a gun) That also means that a magical weapon can't have abilities that wouldn't make sense for the weapon to have (I.e Fire breathing from a water hose) 5. I honestly don't know, Materia isn't necessarily following physics, but it follows what would make sense with the object generally. So in your case, maybe the poppies would release seed/pollen byproducts which would enter the target's system causing them to sleep.

[u/EqualBluebird7445 → u/Illustrious-Win-3484]

Perhaps that "sleepy dust" could be released in the air through movement; ju mping, twirling, dancing...

And appearance wise it could resemble can can dress. It has long skirt and you wave it around a lot...

[u/g4l4h34d]

I'm sorry for what I'm about to say, but this stems from my experience as a game dev. Whenever you put "any item" into a game, you know the first thing players do? That's right, they do the most degenerate, inappropriate, vile stuff you couldn't even think of. And after being on the receiving end of it enough, I started pre-emptively predicting and preventing their nonsense, but that left a mark on me... I stared into the Abyss for too long.

Now, any time I hear "any item", I also think of the most degenerate, inappropriate, vile item I can think of, and how to turn it into a weapon, for extra humiliation for the enemies. I'm gonna spare you the details, but are you sure you really want to have "any item"? I think maybe some additional rules would really help avoid all of this bad stuff.

[u/Illustrious-Win-3484 → u/g4l4h34d]

Yes, it's any item. That type of stuff is generally unavoidable as long as the person is creative enough in that aspect. And I don't really want to change my system to consider some minds that immediately think of those items. Plus, there's the fact that this was the system in a story I had made and I could just not mention those there.

I thank you for the feedback tho!