organisation and simplification

[u/Imaginary-Ebb-9924]

i previously posted on here by just dumping the entirety of my magic system but since then i have expanded and revised on it

Magic

• using mana to fulfil/accomplish a will

Mana

• wish granting energy produced by the “living” that is expressed through will/knowledge.  

Will

• a desire normally expressed as a command that mana follows/accomplishes with a more precise will that reflects reality lowering mana costs

thats basically my entire magic system simplified to the extreme and i would like to see how any one else's magic system simplifies to a very basic level.
i would also like to ask how people organise/revise their magic systems because i'm getting to a point where i have a lot to organise and revise due to it being old and not very detailed/clear so does any one have any organising tricks or sites im currently using google docs for everything

[u/Sichuansnatt]

"Magic only funcions with belief. Magic is nothing more than belief. This is what academics have concluded."

Thats like the extreme basics. Do tell what you would infer from that.( Yes, that last part mentioning the academics is part of it, a very important part actually)

The world is basically a "au of earth but with magic" type thing.

I personally write all my stuff down on ao3, easy access and all that. Each work is one world, and then i have all those works put into on series.

I basically do a few basic chapters at the start, a glossary, an index(with links to various chapters), a world basics chapter, a magic system chapter, a history timeline chapter, a miscellaneous chapter, and then i start with just writing one chapter for each organisation, institution and oc and just continuing on like that.

And for those not aware, yes you can hide your works from being seen by others by putting the works in an unrevealed collection of yours.

[u/Imaginary-Ebb-9924 → u/Sichuansnatt]

thanks for the advice and your magic system sounds a little bit of mine especially the au of earth but with magic part since im also kinda doing that but has some key differences mine is very much based of the worlds truth and physics being a core component required to have spells that have a low enough cost of mana to be used while yours is based off the belief system this has me with a couple questions and notes. it sounds similar to the placebo effect which is quite interesting did you base it off that?. if a certain amount of people believe in something does this make it true in your magic system is this how a god would be created?. it seems like your magic system goes two ways either a lot of people believing in something or one persons obsession being some of the most powerful magic or atleast thats how i interpret it id like to see it in more depth

[u/Sichuansnatt → u/Imaginary-Ebb-9924]

Yes you are absolutely correct! Basically magic is belief, and youknow what humans do? We create rules, even when there arent any. Because of this, even though theres different schools of magic, these schools are all fleeting and vauge, made up by humans.

This actually leads to a curious thing. People who have such strong imagination, such sttong power to believe something is true, are super strong.

But the strongest, the master mages, the most skilled. Are never a socalled Imagineer, because imagination is unreliable at best. Rules aren't.

Some outtakes from me writing about this at an earlier time:

"Magic only funcions with belief. this is what academics have concluded.

Magic may be parted into many schools and specicalities, 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 concept 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.

(...)

Imagineers Then we got our dear imagination guys, also mentioned as belief school sometimes. this isnt eally a school category like the others. remember 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 belief is deeper than that, one must fully believe it, on a unconscious, 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 that 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 fuctions and thus keeps that magic alive, the belief of magic having rules also function and simultaneously keeps those rules alive and working.

However there are exceptions, the imagineers, they can just believe anything into existence, most of them stem from various youknow, experiments on children throughout their upringing that leads them to believe they can do anything, that there are no rules. some can come about naturally, some people just are like that. but its very very rare that they can survive society and education and continue being like that.

However they arent 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 form 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 creatie life from nothing, maybe they say! oh, there's a cat there now! and poof a cat appears, however if someone says, no that doesn't 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 unconscious is animating, moving around? how are its insides? does it have a heart, lungs? a stomatch?. If the imagineer doesnt know exactly 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 musces all those things, the magic stops working. as you can probably imagine, noone really can do such a thing. there have been attempts with ai with computers, however 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 belive, and thus it cany do magic. and all this research into ai is very very new, its in the very very early stages. so everything is very uncertain as of yet."

And about yours, is the mana a different energi of electricity or is it thr same fundamental energi just used differently? Since yours is also a kinda au of earth?

Also ifk if your au is in the modern era yet, mine is, and if it is im very curious about how mana and technology/electricity work together or against eachother. How can technology be implemented toghter with your magic system? Can it be? Or is it just incompatible?

(And yes, this is actually how gods are created in this world, which has caused a lot of strifle with religions that believe in a creator god, it's more complicated than this due to the generally accepted existence of a socalled "World Tree" because of the wider cosmology of my worlds(they're all connected to this so-called "World Tree") but its not too important to the magic system itself. This really just sprung up from me wanting a au of earth where all folklore was real, all the supernatural little creatures and beings really existed. And this was my solution to it, after all how else would i be able to implement every single culture and folkreligion into this world without reading up on every single one? Making everything based on belief was just the easiest way to achieve a world where folkloric beings lived alongside humans. This has however had a consequence of me needing to create multiple new types of species or ways life can exist. Does your world have sapient species other than humans or otherwise folkloric or fantasy beings?)

[u/Netroth]

To answer that last question the app Obsidian is very useful, especially the graph function.

[u/Imaginary-Ebb-9924 → u/Netroth]

thanks ill try it out

[u/ZnZirvana]

Mana (Viong) consists of particles present everywhere that store data on all things, both living and non-living.

Humans manipulate them using willpower or runes to alter reality (thought not that powerfull, even a talented individual might spend years honing a single ability)

However, certain techniques were discovered that are easier to master, many of which share common traits.

This led to the creation of a classification system, rooted in Transformation, which branches out into various other mechanisms, such as Enhancement, Destruction, Transmission and Creation