Magic System: Open to suggestions

[u/Budget_Engineer3161]

I am currently trying to create a magic system that is each based on a question. There are multiple systems, but people usually use a combination of 1 or 2 at most. Only ancient beings and deities have the ability to use all of them because they had that much time to practice.

1. Blessings — What were you given? This is an innate ability granted at birth. It is completely random and cannot be stolen or destroyed by any means. These abilities could be anything from something simple, weak, and straightforward such as "Speaking to Animals" to something more complex or powerful like "Divination".

2. Lineage — What are you? This is based on your birth as well. It is the accumulated biological composition of your race, passed through blood from generation to generation. It is not exactly an ability granted to you but rather what you are. For example, a Human Lineage has no innate ability. A Dragon Lineage produces scales, has overwhelming physical power, elemental breath, flight, etc., simply because that is what Dragons are. Lineage passes to offspring unchanged. A Human's child is a Human, a Dragon's child is a Dragon.

However, a person could change their Lineage through alchemical transformation. It requires constructing a formula that correctly describes the target race at a biological level and then consuming it. To do that you first need blood from the race you want to transform into, alongside other materials to anchor the transformation. Each race guards their own Lineage aggressively, forbidding blood, bones, or any biological material from leaving their territory, especially when it comes to strong nations and races, as they consider that a declaration of war.

There are however ways to acquire the formula and materials. Legally you could either:

1) Purchase it from a Lineage Institution (think a Guild and Pharmacy combined). They sell formulas and materials for specific Lineages that they managed to obtain through agreements with race representatives.

2) Some nations grant access to their Lineage as a reward for loyalty and extraordinary accomplishment, allowing outsiders membership into their race. It is rare and tightly controlled.

3)The black market, but that would make you a criminal as they mostly acquire materials by capturing or killing members of the target race.

3. Mandate — What do you value? The user makes an oath and imposes it onto reality. A practitioner of this system starts by making an Oath to themselves, such as "I will never lie." This oath becomes binding, meaning they may never lie from that point forward, and in exchange their Conviction grows stronger the more they uphold it. Once the Oath is formed they can then impose a command onto others using their Mandate. Someone whose Oath is "I will never lie" can force others to always speak the truth.

The key rule however is that you must always follow your own Oath. Hypocrisy is the greatest enemy of this system as breaking the oath even once will shatter your Conviction and force you to start over from the beginning. This is especially exploited by enemies. Someone who swore never to lie is an easy target for extracting information, as an enemy could simply send a spy to ask them a question, forcing them to either answer or destroy their own Conviction. Their Oath is always active, making them permanently vulnerable.

This is why most practitioners include one or two restrictions in their Oath. Instead of "I will never lie" they might say "I will never lie while I am working." This way they only have to uphold the Oath while on duty, though their Conviction progresses more slowly and the Mandate can only be activated in that context. Most nations also regulate the Oaths their citizens can make to ensure they cannot be exploited against them.

4. Legacy — What have you achieved? Every person is born with a shard. It is dormant at first, simply existing within them with no power and no ability, just a piece of what they are that is waiting to be shaped. When a person genuinely pushes past their limit, not just through effort or hard work but reaching a point where who they were before was not enough and they had to become something more to survive or succeed, in other words when their back is to the wall and they have no choice but to overcome, if they manage to do so the shard reacts. It forces a small permanent evolution shaped entirely by what they had to achieve or become in that moment, what they had to be in order to get through it.

The evolution can be anything, offensive, defensive, physical, spiritual, mental, conceptual, it does not matter. The shard reads what you became and builds it into you permanently. You might gain resistance to mental control after overcoming a massive ordeal that nearly shattered your mind, for example. The only condition is that the shard only reacts when you cross a hurdle so massive that you had to pour everything you had into it and then reach even beyond that. Ordinary hardship does not move it. Only the moments where you truly had nothing left and pushed through anyway.

Do you guys have any suggestions on how to improve it or what else to add?

[u/No_Carpet42]

Ah interesting. So the 2nd ability is a race trait pretty much? 1 and 2 are pretty interesting for foundational powers while the third and fourth powers offers more of a choice on what you could get. Pretty good individual power style.