The Magic of Magicbuilding: Unnecessary Consequences

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 going to put together everything we have so far.  Then we're going to light some of it on fire as a warning to the rest.

Accumulated Wisdom

We're going to go ahead and gather up everything we've said so far about our magical system, starting with our first post a month ago and moving forward chronologically:

• Our magic system is intended to have a mixture of hard and soft magic.  As our hazy target, we likened soft magic to Calvinball, and hard magic to Formula 1 Racing; we wanted something about the level of lacrosse, "[with] lots of shouting and running, people wearing silly headgear and waving sticks at each other, but mostly safe to play indoors if you use socks instead of balls."
• We decided to build a framework for our magic system using the three F's:  Form, Function, Fee.  By establishing the three F's, we hope to answer the following questions:  What is magic?  When can magic occur?  Where can magic be used?  How can magic be used?  Who can use magic?  Why can they use magic?
• We established that we wanted a form of magic that was, in some ways, indistinguishable from technology.
• Given a set of options for the source of magical energy, we picked "other dimensions."  We further elaborated that each dimension tapped into provided different energy and caused different magical effects.
• We explained that consciousness powers the initial formation of the portals from which magic is drawn.  This incidentally means that creatures and objects that lack consciousness cannot perform magical acts, so there will be no automated wizards.
• Next, we established that raw, magical energy is molded by "sympathetic magic" in the form of a combination of gestures, words, and materials.  This is basic RPG logic and a good default position to take.
• We noted that raw magic is invisible but can be sensed, similarly to being able to notice a lightning strike just before it happens; people who know what to look for can see the "potential" affecting things.
• Magic, once even partially formed, becomes visible as the energy starts to take effect.
• Magic is semi-conscious and can obey instructions almost like basic programs.  In that sense, magic words are a sort of programming language.
• We linked our basic form back to the goal of replicating modern technology using magic as a source of energy, rather than conventional energy sources.
• Based on that, we determined that magic should be straightforward enough that two spells could be cast in conjunction and maintained for quite some time.
• We also determined that continuous casting should be easier than repeated, discrete castings.  Further, it is (pound for pound, so to speak) easier to cast larger spells than smaller spells.
• Magical energy can be stored and tapped into.  Not explicitly stated but implied is that the process would be similar to tapping into dimensional energy, but you wouldn't need to create a dimensional portal to access the energy, so it would probably be easier.  At the very least, the caster wouldn't have to pay the cost for activating a portal.  Speaking of,
• Magic requires both physical and mental effort, with the minimum cost (usually) being due to activating the dimensional portal.  Different dimensions carry different costs.
• The mental and physical cost is dependent on, and sympathetic to, the dimensional energy being used.  Drawing on energy from the Dimension of Fire, for example, will leave casters both sweaty and emotionally "fiery."
• While using more energy is easier "pound for pound" than less energy, there is still more exertion involved.  Past a certain point, a typical caster will pass out due to the exertion, and might even kill themselves trying to push past that point.

Whew!  That's a bit of a list.  It also isn't a bad framework for a magical system.  However, there are a couple of issues that we'll need to address.  The biggest issue?

Starting a car.

Car Car Revolution

Something we have to bear in mind is that the stated goal of our magical framework is to have advanced magic resemble technology so closely that it is hard to tell the difference.  Parts of our framework do indeed resemble that; tapping into multi-dimensional energy in esoteric fashion could be both a fantasy and a sci-fi trope.  Other parts, however, do not.  To demonstrate, let's look at starting a car in the real world, as opposed to starting a car in our magical setting.

In the real world:  You climb into the vehicle on the driver's side.  Assuming we're talking about a relatively new vehicle, you ensure the vehicle is set in Park, then press in the brake pedal.  While continuing to depress the pedal, you also press the ignition switch.  If you have the key in your possession, the car starts.

In our setting:  You climb into the vehicle on the driver's side.  You ensure the vehicle is set in Park, then begin gesticulating wildly in what we described as a sort of "interpretive dance."  This dance is more complicated than usual, since it will be activating two spells in a precise sequence.  You also intone words in a mystical language, with materials representative of both fire and water.  Done correctly, the car starts.  Done incorrectly, there is a nonzero chance the car explodes.

Hopefully, the issue is clear.  The sympathetic magic we originally said would be used to summon magical energy doesn't work well in a technological setting.  More broadly, we should consider the fact that, to blend magic with technology, we need to have a method that can be, at the very least, aided by technological innovation.  Magic isn't going to be indistinguishable from technology if it has none of the trappings of technology.

To fix this, let's work backwards from our ideal.  The best version of our setting would be that a person climbs into the vehicle on the driver's side; ensures the vehicle is set in Park; depresses a pedal; presses an ignition switch; uses an item to confirm their permission to activate the vehicle; and the car starts.  What could we do to cast a spell that looks like that?

While this is an open-ended question for you to consider, we've decided to address this by changing the method used to create the portals and control the flow of magic.  We're going to use sigils instead.

The Future of Magic is Now

Sigils, for those not in the know, are those mystical-looking designs with weird letters, lots of circles, and geometric shapes that make it look like someone is doing the magical version of graduate-level math.

Something like this.

Consider:  We don't have any technological advances available that make interpretive dance any easier.  Neither do we have any way of making readily available certain materials without simply embedding them somewhere nearby.  We could perhaps record vocal intonations and then play them, but that doesn't really make spells easier as much as it replaces one issue with another.

Consider:  precisely configuring a sigil so that it will do exactly what you want is something akin to programming, and we already mentioned that there are some similarities between giving magical energy instructions and programming.  More importantly, once we have a specific act that we want performed every time we activate a sigil, we can make a sigil permanent.  More importantly: with technology, reproduction of sigils becomes trivial.

Walk through the consequences of using sigils.  Attaching it to the rest of our framework while minimizing other changes means that activation of sigils is a conscious act.  If we press pedals and switches to activate sigils, we match up pretty well with our ideal image.  Instead of "Press to Activate," the ignition switch now looks similar to a tiny version of the above sigil.  Technology and sigils go hand in hand; precise reproduction of increasingly small, increasingly precise sigils allows us to power smaller and more complicated devices.  Buttons work as they do in the real world, save that the initial effort of activating items is either paid by plugging them into a network that can fill containers with the correct magical energy, or by the user themselves.  Said network would spring from power plants where wizards work to keep massive stores pushing energy through to the public.  Energy could be transferred to stations, allowing magical energy to mimic both gasoline and electricity.

This... could work.

Conclusion

Next week, we'll begin considering more specific consequences.  Namely, we're going to take our framework for an experimental spin through a generic setting and see what happens when a civilization has access to the magic we've developed.  After all, considering that magic and technology are bosom buddies by the present day, they must have grown up side by side.  That's bound to change some things, right?