The Magic of Magicbuilding: Elementary Magic

Welcome to the Magic of Magicbuilding, our little spinoff feature that focuses specifically on building a magical system for a fantasy setting.  This week, we're considering how basic, generic spells would work.

What We Have So Far

Last week, we determined that magic used to defeat monsters and extra-dimensional creatures would mostly take the form of pre-prepared sigils, carried around and used for very specific attacks and defenses.  Several weeks back, we looked at soft and hard limits and decided on "spongy" limits to our magical system; generally speaking, we can set up a spell that will run a car for some time, but the longer the spell runs, the more overheated physically and the more fiery temperamentally the caster gets.  The average caster, therefore, is advised to craft sigils that are fairly precise in what they do, to save on the wear and tear of the caster.

We've also established that sigils are more or less the magical version of programs.  A given sigil can give magical energy instructions that are precise enough (presumably) to make magical phones possible, as well as control enough energy to give a vehicle our world's version of a hundred or so horsepower.

Last but not least, we've established that these sigils draw from a variety of dimensions.  Each dimension provides a different magical energy that causes different effects when used.  Earth Magic allows for the movement of earth, as well as providing a ready source of geophysical energy.  Water Magic conjures various fluids, in various quantities, at varying speeds.  Air Magic either conjures gases or manipulates ionic charges (meaning that winds or electrical currents can be formed).  Fire Magic manipulates kinetic and thermal energy, allowing for objects to be heated, cooled, or moved.  Fae Magic manipulates mental states; Chthonic Magic manipulates bio-energy; Void Magic causes biological changes in a target.  Last but not least, Singularity Magic manipulates how space and time work.

That's a lot to work with!  For now, we're just going to focus on what the most basic parts of each magic can do.  In an effort to keep the post length from getting away from us, we'll pause for the week around 1500 words.  Sound good?

Elementary Elemental Magic

For the elemental magics, we're going to consider what someone with an imagination, a knowledge of how the magical system works, and a basic understanding of science could manage.  And by "basic," we mean "a little higher than what you could learn about the elements by looking out your window."  Remember, the most basic, tried and true magics will predate most scientific knowledge.

  Earth Magic.  A caster would know that they could send Earth Magic into the ground, and do so in a fairly specific fashion to cause nearby effects.  They would start with brute force, sending pulses or blasts of energy out.  Localized, minor earthquakes would be possible.  Breaking the ground surface up by overloading it with such energy would also be reasonable.  Measured uses of energy to raise or lower a section of earth would be more difficult, though that would be mitigated (or complicated) by the density and strength of the nearby ground.  Using the "window science" approach, a caster would know that different effects could be generated by running the same energy through different materials.

  To put these possibilities in a more spell-like form:

• Quake.  The caster targets a spot a specific distance away in the direction of their outstretched hand.  That spot trembles violently (somewhere between a 4.0 and a 5.0 on the Richter scale), causing disorientation, loss of footing, and even damage to improperly built structures.
• Trip.  Similar to the last spell, but this time the spot is briefly pushed upward or downward.  Creatures moving across the space at the time will almost certainly stumble or trip.  Useful for dealing with creatures that don't have friction-adding adaptations, like other humanoids; such creatures are likely to completely lose control and go sprawling.
• Nausea.  Created through a variety of means, but most useful against creatures with a strong sense of balance.  Subtle motion in the ground, slight but subconsciously-noted changes in angles, and bursts of "infrasound" (sonic vibrations linked to earthquakes) all combine to give the creatures in the affected area a terrestrial version of sea-sickness.
• Sculpt.  This requires more specific sigil work than the others, but gives an idea of how powerful Earth Magic could be: a long string of instructions combines to move earthly materials, from dirt to metal, until a very specific shape is formed.  Simpler versions of this spell might make a small wall or even bricks.  A few dozen man-hours poured into writing a single sigil might make something more complicated, such as the statue this spell's name evokes.  More generic varieties might be used to make post-holes.

  Water Magic.  Water magic seems straightforward, but clever use of various liquids can produce a wild array of effects.  To start with are the most obvious options:  generating drinkable water, pure oil, undiluted acid, or a pot of liquid mercury.  Then we recall that part of the magic is deciding where these liquids are generated, in what quantities, and under what level of pressure.

  As with Earth Magic, we'll give you a couple of spell ideas to work with.

• Shower.  A spray of water droplets pours from overhead for a short period of time.  Until someone gets the bright idea to combine this spell with some Fire Magic, the resulting shower is going to be cold, but at least it's free.  Also a good way to rinse dirty clothing in a pinch.
• Extinguish.  A good-sized quantity of water is poured over an area.  The amount varies based on the sigil, but it's designed to put out fires, so there's going to be quite a bit.
• Mire.  Water appears in the ground at a set distance and direction from the sigil.  Experimentation will be necessary to determine how much water will cause the desired effect for a given ground type, but the upshot is that the ground becomes saturated, soft, and muddy.  In a sandy area the result would be a patch of quicksand.
• Melt.  A dangerous spell, summoning a liquid mineral acid to eat away at whatever it comes in contact with.  Not really useful in a combat setting; while it would definitely harm or even kill whatever you coated with it, the effect takes time to do real damage (between 5 and 30 seconds before the damage becomes severe), and you're likely going to be mauled by whatever creature you just did that to.  A much smaller version with a steady drip could be used to smoothly etch glass, however.
• Jet.  Water shoots out of a spot a set distance from the caster.  The key here is that the water is shooting out at an incredible level of pressure- more than enough to carve into, or through, almost anything.  To keep from killing the caster, the jet is likely to be small enough that the thousands of psi needed to do this is being generated by "only" a few gallons per minute.

Conclusion

That last Water Magic spell brought us to ~1250 words.  Based on our progress so far, we can assume that we'll be doing this for a few weeks.

Something important to consider as we move forward:  these spells are not remotely exhaustive, nor even uniform in nature.  Look at the way these spells would work similarly to a class full of bright new programming students, learning how to build a Monte Carlo simulator.  They're all going to learn how to use the same language, and (hopefully) when they're done, they'll all have programs that accomplish the same goal.  However, if there are 30 students in that class, odds are there will be 32 or 33 programs designed to accomplish that goal.

That's the thing with language-based programming- and it will be the thing with a magic system that works similarly to language-based programming.  There are as many ways to write the "code" as there are different ways to say a sentence.  They're each equally valid; as long as the "code" works, you needn't worry if the fine details differ from programmer to programmer, or caster to caster.  As such, we won't be finishing this series with some kind of standardized book of spells that our casters use.

It would be neat to slap a sigil on a cup or something, though.  We'll have to think about that.