Reply #373: It's perfectly simple to sneak around [View All]

[Mythsaje]

if most of your sword is inside a dimension pocket. :D

In my game I had several different kinds of magic, AND psionics--which was a separate system.

You had magecraft, which allowed the character to create his or her own spells, either offensive, defensive, alteration, or general effect 1 or 2 (GE were the highest).

Then you had spiritwrangling, which allowed characters to summon and control various types of elemental or supernatural creatures.

Then sorcery, which involved manipulating other people's PERCEPTION of reality. Illusion with the spoken word-like super-hypnotism.

Then there was runecrafting.

But when I sat down and tried to figure it out for the novels, none of this worked very well at all. I needed something that unified the whole theory of magic. Since I was working with a modern background, I basically TOOK magic from the people--the result of deliberate attacks on the genetic potential by aliens prepping the Earth for invasion. They don't like magic much.

"Magic" is the manipulation of mana, which is energy left over from the creation of alternate universes. More or less. It's more complicated than that, but that's the gist. Mana manifests as strands or threads of energy flowing through and around the Earth. A mage can see, touch, and manipulate threads to create certain "effects." A thread can be stretched and hollowed, for example, allowing the mage to step through from one point to another within a mile or so in a single step. The thread can be compacted, and one end closed, to create a dimension pocket.

Spells are created by combining threads, weaving them into patterns that manifest visibly to other mages as complex spell sigils. Each thread put into a spell can cause one effect. Once the spell is used, it's gone, but they can also be bound into stationary patterns like runes or even circuitboards. As long as the spell sits for a while before being activated, the pattern will be reformed after use, allowing for the spells to renew themselves.

Spirits are very complex spells that take on a semi-sentient identity and can manifest themselves phyiscally.

I've been told on several occasions that my magic system is one of the most unique you'll ever run across in fantasy.