The Magic of Magicbuilding: Q and A

Welcome to the Magic of Magicbuilding, our little spinoff feature that focuses specifically on building a magical system for a fantasy setting.  Last week, we discussed the distinction between hard and soft magic.  This week?  We're answering some questions.  We're even going to answer some of the questions we asked last week.

What Are We Talking About?

Now that we have the three F's in mind, we can start building our system by diving into one F at a time.  Considering our options, we'll start with the first F:  Form.  Which, in turn, means that we're going to start by asking the fundamental question, "What exactly are we talking about when we say 'Magic'?"

We already have some idea, thanks to our Worldbuilding series.  We're looking at some process that's advanced enough to be indistinguishable from technology.  Magic is, therefore, something that can be used for and by items that we traditionally consider to be products of science.  Trucks will be powered by arcane magic.  Televisions might not look exactly like what we're used to, but the upshot will be the same: you turn it on, and you can watch a show, the news, a movie, or what have you.  Smartphones will be unchanged, because they effectively already are enchanted stone slabs that think when electrified.

When you go about building your own magic system, you'll start the process of establishing magic's form by having a similar thought process:  imagine what the magic will be doing in your setting first.  From there, work backward to establish what form magic would need to take for that to work.  Don't worry about putting the cart before the horse until you've metaphorically decided whether you'll have a cart and/or horse at all.  And, as we've started with, you'll want to begin with familiar imagery.  It doesn't have to be technology, either; starting with wands and pointy hats is just as valid.  The important thing is to start with the familiar and then, from there, move into the esoteric.

To return to the example we've started building, what will be some ways that magic differs from science?  There will have to be differences, or else we won't actually have magic.  We'll have science with an unusual name.  The easiest difference to introduce would likely be the source of magic's power.  In science, energy is derived from physical and chemical reactions.  Technically, the energy is always present, since energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but its release is governed by a series of interactions between matter and energy.  Magic, as of yet, has no energy source.

We have a couple of options.  Moving from least fantastical to most fantastical, magic could be:

• Derived from a physical/chemical reaction, just like normal energy, but the source is exotic.  For example, "magic is the ability to draw upon dark energy/vacuum energy."
• Derived from a physical/chemical reaction, just like normal energy, but the source is fantastic.  For example, "magic is the ability to draw upon energy stored within magical crystals."
• Derived from an exotic source.  "Magic is the ability to draw upon energy from another dimension."
• Derived from a fantastic source.  "Magic is the ability to draw upon mana, which is present in varying levels throughout the world and follows its own rules."
• The ability to alter how reality works, without any known energy requirements.  "Magic is the manifestation of a User's will upon the universe."

We'll start by selecting the middle option and say that magic is the ability to draw upon energy from another dimension.  We now have to ask ourselves, why are people capable of drawing upon this energy?  Why this specific dimension?  How much energy can they draw upon?  And what, generally, happens when they draw upon it?  These questions will allow us to sufficiently describe the Form that magic takes to be able to say with some confidence, "this is what magic looks like in a given scenario."

Well, for values of "look."  We technically haven't described magic using any senses yet, and that will be our final task this week.  Something to consider:  Do we use normal senses to perceive magic, magical senses, or both?

A Selection of Answers

Let's see what it looks like to presume answers to the above questions, and a few questions that immediately follow:

  Form.  Magic is energy from another dimension.  There are multiple varieties of magic, each with a different dimension as its source.  Some are obvious:  fire magic is drawn from the Dimension of Fire, while water magic is drawn from the Dimension of Water.  Some are less obvious:  illusions and enchantments are powered by magic from what the fae refer to as the First World, and healing magic, confusingly, is powered by the Chthonic Realms, which most know to be the source of undeath.

  Regardless of its source, magic (roughly) works the same way.  A consciousness wills into existence a tiny portal.  The energy requirements for the portal grow exponentially, so typical portals are microscopic.  Regardless of the size, consciousness empowers the initial portal, and so it isn't possible for beings or objects that lack consciousness to open a portal on their own.  Once the portal is open, energy from the desired dimension is drawn semi-randomly through the portal, where it can be shaped using "sympathetic magic," a combination of movements, sounds, and objects that evoke the desired effect.  Energy from other dimensions is itself semi-conscious and treats the sympathetic magic as a set of instructions to be mindlessly obeyed.  The energy tends to be consumed in the process, although certain rituals exist that will cause the magic to store itself in an inanimate object indefinitely.  If the instructions cannot be obeyed, for whatever reason, the energy dissipates harmlessly.  If the instructions can be obeyed but are improperly given, the energy mindlessly obeys anyway... which tends to create issues when you, for example, accidentally forget to give your fire magic a distance before instructing it to explode.

  "Raw magic," as in magical energy that has not been shaped yet, exists in a potential rather than actual form.  As such, it does not interact with the rest of our universe until the magic takes shape, although the moment it starts to take shape it assumes a "real" form.  Still, just as people can sense the potential in an electrical discharge before it occurs via such tells as raised hair and the crackle of partially discharged energy, people can learn to sense magic before it begins to form.

  For everyone else, what seems to occur is:  a caster concentrates to an extreme level.  Shortly afterward, they begin to move in a fashion reminiscent of the energy they are about to draw upon, similar to an interpretive dance.  As they do, they draw out objects that relate to the spell they are attempting to cast, and they speak with an odd syntax, as though they are reading computer code from an obscure language after translating it into a different language you've never heard of.  As they do, energy and/or matter suddenly start to form out of seeming nothingness nearby.  Once complete, the "spell" suddenly discharges, performing the task assigned to it.

Drawing Conclusions

What you will notice as you build the Form of your magical system is that it doesn't actually matter what that Form is.  What matters is that you answer questions about the Form your system takes, and that as you do, the answers follow from each other.  We've talked about depth in our Worldbuilding series. What you'll want to do is build a tree of answers to questions as they arise:

"What is magic?"  It's dimensional energy.

"Well, how do people use that energy?"  They pull it from the other dimension to this one, and then make a spell with it.

"How do they do that?"  Two-part answer:  They pull energy from the other dimensions using something nice and ephemeral (meaning we don't have to explain exactly how it works), like consciousness.  They make spells using sympathetic magic, which just so happens to look a lot like how popular fantasy perceives a spell working- words, motions, and materials.

"What can they do with that energy?"  That one we won't be answering yet; that is part of explaining magic's function.  We're just focusing on the magic itself right now.

"How does a magic spell work?"  See the above description, but in short, it follows naturally from our two-part answer.

With that, we've dipped three levels beneath the surface, and for our purposes, that's as deep as we need to go.  We now go back up a few levels, say, to the energy question, and now ask a new question about that:  "What kinds of energy can people use to make magic?"  And the process starts anew.  Continue until you feel you have enough information to reliably answer any questions that will arise.  As you do, use your answers to generate new questions, and use those same answers to determine what the next answers should be.

Conclusion

Now that we have a vague, irregular border drawn around magic, our next step is going to be determining what exactly can be done with it.  That is where the Function of magic comes in, and that's what we'll be addressing next time.  Until then, try not to worry about questions that could result in you staring at a corkboard covered in pictures and red string, such as "since we're effectively introducing new energy to this universe, does magic contribute to the rate of the universe's expansion?"

This exercise is for fun, people.  For this first round at least, keep your questions to the undergraduate physics level.